


When We Collide (We Come Together)

by Pollydoodles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7474293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wakanda has been compromised.</p><p>Steve Rogers, no longer Captain America and now an internationally wanted criminal, manages with the help of King T'Challa to remove James Buchanan Barnes before things go completely south.</p><p>Rogers leaves him with the only person he realistically can. Darcy Lewis.</p><p>Barnes, awakened prematurely from cryo-sleep and still missing one arm as well as his sense of humour, is not impressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Darcy jumped up at the sound of the doorbell buzzing - intermittently, and she remembered that she needed to look at getting that fixed - and when she pulled the door open there was an excited Indian man waving at her from the other side. She pasted a smile on her face and wondered how long she’d have to indulge him for before he would manage to hand over the pizza he’s supposed to be delivering to her. 

“Oh, Miss Lewis,” He said happily, rooting around in his messenger bag not nearly quickly enough for Darcy’s tastes. “We thought something might have happened to you.”

“I, uh, why?” She asked, thrown by the question. 

“We’ve not seen you in three weeks!” He exclaimed, eyes wide, and she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her right then and there. Or him. That might be better, she thought. Yes, definitely swallow rude pizza delivery guy instead. Crucially leaving the pizza. 

“Well, you know.” She said awkwardly, wishing he’d just give her the damn pizza so she could eat it in peace and find a new pizza place for next time. One with less nosy delivery guys who knew when to hold their tongues. “I’ve been on a health kick.” There was a pause as his eyes flickered over her unwittingly and Darcy felt the strong urge to hit him and slam the door in his face, food or no food. 

That had occurred roughly a week before a little package turned up at her door, a Fedex guy handing it over and retreating without the need to comment on her habits or there otherwise, and Darcy found inside it a frankly ancient cell phone and a short letter. A very short letter, that informed her if she was the person he’d been advised she was, could she please ring the number on the phone. A mutual friend had recommended her, and, if she wanted, there was a job in it for her. 

An unpaid job.  
A job that might very well be dangerous. 

Neither of these things were stated in the letter, but Darcy could - firstly - read between the lines, and secondly there was a small doodle of Thor’s hammer in the bottom left hand corner which told her in no uncertain terms exactly who that mutual friend was. That in itself told her the latter, and she assumed the former because Darcy had never managed to score a properly paid job in her life so she didn’t see any reason to break that streak right now. 

On that note, she took a look around her apartment, and snorted. Apartment was stretching it. Shoebox filled with second hand and mostly broken camping equipment was a much better description, and far more accurate. Jane’s apartment and her undying hospitality had taken Darcy so far, but the goodwill of others needed to end. 

She looked at the phone in her hand. 

She dialled.

\-------

Steve had, with T’Challa’s help, secreted Bucky out of Wakanda and onto a small private fighter jet which was en route to a safe house, also procured with T’Challa’s help. The political situation had turned nasty, with General Ross demanding an open border to the country, citing the natural source of vibranium as an international concern in light of recent actions. 

Neither Steve nor T’Challa were fooled by the tactics the man was employing, hiding behind obscure international law and playing on public fears - it seemed clear to the both of them that some intelligence had either leaked or been stolen, suggesting that James Buchanan Barnes was currently residing within Wakandan borders. 

“It’s not much, Buck, but it’ll have to do.” He said, hauling a duffel bag up and talking over his shoulder to the man behind him. Bucky had been near silent most of the trip, and now he looked out at the small valley they’d landed in, wet and cold, with an unamused look on his face. A small stone cottage sat nestled into the hillside, almost unnoticeable against the slate-grey sky above it. 

“Sure I couldn’t just stay in Wakanda?” He grumbled, following Steve nonetheless down the ramp. “It’s not like I’m a trained mercenary or anything.” Bucky shifted another bag onto his right shoulder, stumbling slightly before righting himself, still unused to the uneven weight distribution now that his metal arm was gone. He looked up to find Steve waiting at the edge of the ramp, giving him a once-over.

“Surely I can be of help-” He started again, marching towards the blond. 

“Not like this, Buck.” Steve shook his head. “It's dangerous enough for me, and you're... Well you're…”

“Fucking disabled.” Bucky finished, glaring.

“Not what I was going to say.” Steve said quietly, putting a hand on the other man’s shoulder and squeezing reflexively. Bucky snorted, and it looked an awful lot like he had something else to say - probably quite a lot else to say, Steve thought - but managed with a superhuman effort to swallow it back down and keep quiet. Instead, he glowered. 

“C’mon.” Steve said, jerking his head. “You gotta meet your new roommate anyway.” With that, he turned on his heel and began to jog towards the small cottage. Bucky, stock still on the edge of the lowered ramp to the jet, stared after his friend. 

“Roommate?”

\------

“This is Darcy Lewis.” Steve said with a wide smile as Bucky finally pushed his way through the little wooden door. Stepping to one side, the captain clapped a hand to the shoulder of a petite brunette girl, who plastered the fakest looking smile over her face he’d probably ever seen and waved a hand at him. Bucky took one look at her and hated her instantly. 

She wore a brightly coloured knit sweater which fell almost to her knees, obscenely bright, Bucky thought to himself, tempted to shield his eyes against it. Her jeans were loose and patched, a liberal amount of holes decorating them that he could plainly see were not a fashion statement but rather worn in through years of use. Her feet were clad in multi-coloured socks, neither of which even vaguely matched the other, and her toes wiggled self consciously as he finished his sweep over her. 

Flicking his eyes back up to her face, upon which her smile still awkwardly hung, he snorted. 

“No.” Bucky said shortly, turning back to Steve, whose own smile faltered. 

“No?” He echoed, eyebrows knit together in confusion. 

Bucky shook his head. 

“Shall I…” The girl started, looking to Steve for reassurance before continuing. “Shall I make some coffee? That might be nice, right? Everyone likes coffee.” She said it brightly, looking between the pair of them like fucking hot drinks would solve the conflict in Palestine and bring about world peace. She nodded enthusiastically, first at Steve and then at him, wrinkling her nose up and then shuffling off with her sweater sleeves tugged over her hands towards the kitchenette. 

Bucky fixed Steve with a look that said, plain as day, kill me now. 

Steve jerked a thumb back behind him and motioned for Bucky to follow. Making his way behind the other man up a set of tiny wooden stairs that he doubted could take his weight - stepping gingerly and expecting at any moment to crash through to whatever lay beneath - Bucky grumbled to himself, loudly. Steve’s shoulders in front of him were set and tense as he kept up a running commentary of all that was awful. He could still hear the girl crashing about in the kitchen as they emerged onto the landing.

“Looks like Darcy’s left you the bigger room.” Steve said, poking his head into the first of three doors that comprised the upper level and backing out again, shutting the door firmly. “That’s nice of her, isn’t it?” Bucky, thinking that it would be far nicer of her if she simply didn’t exist in the same place that he was, conveyed as much with his eyes to the other man, who ignored him. 

Pushing open the last door on the left - passing the middle door, which was hanging off the topmost hinge Bucky noted as he stomped past it - Steve slung the duffel bag he’d been carrying onto the bed that jutted into the room. Bucky let his own bag slide from his right shoulder to the floor with a thump as he stood in the doorway, and huffed. 

“Oh yeah.” He said, looking around. “Palatial, this one.” The roof was barely high enough to accommodate him at full height and Steve, having an inch or so on Bucky, stooped a little which his head inclined to fit. The roof sloped at odd angles and the floor squeaked horribly as the other man inspected all four foot square of the room. 

Steve sighed. 

“Steve.” Bucky said, his voice imploring as he spoke. “Are you genuinely going to leave me here, in the middle of fucking nowhere, with a civilian and one arm?”

“Buck - I haven't got a whole lot of choices right now, pal.” Steve dropped onto the small bed which let out an ominous groan under his weight and sagged badly in the middle. Bucky leaned against the wall and let out a frustrated huff of air that fogged briefly in front of his face before dissipating. 

“Look, Thor said he trusts her implicitly so-”

“Wait.” Bucky stood up straight again. “Wait - you don't even know this kid?” 

Steve stuck his tongue into his cheek and looked down to the floor where a moth-eaten rug barely covered half the floor, and poorly at that. Bucky, who still had significant gaps in his memory but found some things ingrained in him like indelible marker, remembered that habit from seventy years previous. It was a particular tic that Steve had developed when he didn’t want to lie but absolutely did not want to have to tell the truth either. 

“Oh, for the love of-”

“Coffee!” 

Steve stood up quickly, relief on his face at being interrupted and the mattress twanging loudly at the sudden change in pressure. Bucky turned in the small doorway, narrowly missing hitting his head on the slope of the roof above him, to find the girl smiling up at him broadly and shoving a steaming mug into his face. He reeled back slightly, and Steve’s hand snaked around him to pluck the cup from her hand instead. 

She offered up the one in her other hand instantly and, reluctantly, he took it. 

The mug was faded and chipped in multiple places. The lettering across it, once probably black but now a dirty grey that was almost gone completely in a few places, mentioned something about a slate museum. Bucky wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but it sounded like a particularly awful way to spend one’s free time. He suspected, looking at the girl, that it was the sort of place she might go. 

He frowned, but put the mug to his lips anyway, and promptly choked. The coffee was bitter, far too strong with the barest touch of milk swirling in it and he thought it quite possible that someone could stand a spoon in the stuff if they were so inclined to try. Bucky threw a look over his shoulder to Steve, who was grimacing but chugging the drink anyway. 

Bucky turned back to the girl in front of him who was rocking forward slightly on her toes, smile still on her face as she looked up at him brightly. He shoved the mug back at her and she fumbled to grab it again before it spilled over her ridiculous sweater. 

“That is the worst cup of coffee I’ve ever had the misfortune to drink.” He said bluntly. “You could register that as a form of torture. I’m sure the Geneva Convention would be interested to hear about it.”

“Buck-” Steve spluttered from behind him.

“Oh,” She said, looking down at the murky contents of the mug, both hands wrapped around it. “Well, I… I don’t actually drink coffee, so it’s a little hard to gauge.” She said, gazing back up at him with clear blue eyes and a hopeful look on her small face. Clouds of dark hair framed it, and she blinked at him before smiling again. 

“You could teach her how you like-”

“No.” Bucky said flatly, cutting Steve off before he could finish that thought. He stared at the brunette in front of him before addressing her again. “Just take it away and dispose of it. Don’t put it down the fucking sink or you’ll probably burn straight through the pipework.” She opened her mouth as if to say something more, caught the look on his face and promptly shut it again, wisely opting to turn on her heel and retreat back downstairs. 

“Bucky.” Steve was reproachful. 

“You’re going back to Wakanda, right?” Bucky asked, ignoring him. “You’d better get yourself checked out when you land. Christ knows what that shit’s gonna do to your insides.” He bent to pick up the bag he’d dropped to the floor, stomped across the room and threw it on the bed with the other. 

“The coffee in the 30s wasn’t any better.” Steve said mildly, staring down at what remained in the bottom of the mug he held, and swirling it contemplatively. It didn’t move, sticking resolutely to the cracked ceramic. “And the stuff we had in the war could’ve stripped paint.” 

“And I complained about that, too.” Bucky said shortly, unzipping the bag and turning it upside down, letting the contents spill over the small bed. “What’s your point?” Behind him, Steve rolled his eyes and sighed, folding his arms over his broad chest. He could hear Darcy chattering to herself in the kitchen below them, not quite loud enough to make out the words. 

“She's chatty.” 

Bucky, whom Steve could practically hear rolling his eyes as he spoke, was able to hear Darcy as she pottered about below them just as well as Steve could, and the captain reflected briefly that - robust as she appeared to be - it was a minor blessing that Darcy didn’t have enhanced hearing the way the pair of them did. 

“You used to like chatty.” He offered in response, smiling a little to himself as a sudden flash of memory hit him, Bucky with an arm looped around a laughing redhead who gazed up at him adoringly. 

“Used to like having two arms, too. Don't always go my way, does it?” Bucky said grimly. 

“Buck-” Steve sounded pained and the other man cut him off with a wave of his hand and without looking back at him, 

“Yeah, yeah, Rogers.” With that, he did turn around. “I know you ain’t got much choice, alright. Don’t mean I have to like it, though.” Bucky added quickly, and Steve nodded, knowing that was the best he was going to be able to get out of the man, at this point at least. 

“Just don’t kill her.” Steve said, stepping forward and wrapping Bucky into a firm one-armed hug, mumbling the words into the other man’s neck as he reciprocated fiercely. “You haven’t met Thor, but he’s both very fond of her and built like a brick shithouse. Not sure I can take him, so if anything happens to Darcy you’re on your own, pal.”


	2. Chapter Two

Steve left, a final fierce hug with his arms wrapped around Bucky - and a few more choice words into the other man’s ear, regarding manners, civility and the sort of thing his ma would expect, god rest her soul - and a similar bear hug for Darcy. The little brunette squeaked in surprise as he pulled her in close, almost on her tiptoes to reach him. 

“He’ll warm up,” Steve mumbled into her ear, and caught sight of Bucky’s face over her shoulder. There was a fleeting moment as their eyes met and he winced slightly. “Probably.” Giving Darcy a final squeeze and a smile, he patted her on the shoulder and smiled, tipped his head to Bucky once more, and left. 

There was an uncomfortable pause as the little door swung shut behind Steve and they were finally left alone. Then Darcy turned to him, swinging her arms with her sweater hanging low over her hands and smiled widely at him. Bucky stared back, then pushed past her and dropped onto the couch with a heavy sigh. He rolled his left shoulder reflexively, and almost reached out with his other hand to scratch his elbow, before remembering. 

He scowled. 

Darcy dropped onto the couch next to him, her thigh brushing against his, and he hefted himself further up until he was wedged against the arm, leaning away from the girl. She seemed not to notice, pulling her knees up to her chest with her toes resting on the edge of the couch, wrapping her arms around her legs and then throwing him a wide grin. Her face was framed by a cloud of dark hair and her oversized sweater bunched up around her shoulders. 

“You’re perky.” He said, looking back at her briefly when he realised her eyes were on him. 

She brightened, visibly, if that were possible, smiling even wider than she had before. “Thanks.”

“Not a compliment.”

Her mouth opened, hung there for a moment, then closed again. Mercifully. She blinked, and then her eyes dropped to her knees with her arms wound around them. She chewed on her lower lip, worrying at it a little as Bucky let the silence between them stretch out uncomfortably. He was rather hoping she’d take the hint and go upstairs, or outside, or anywhere that wasn’t in his immediate vicinity; but he was disappointed when she remained, tugging on the ends of her sweater and sneaking odd glances back at him. 

Bucky sighed. 

“What's that?” He said, pointing and wrinkling his nose. She looked up at him instantly, and then the girl’s gaze followed the line of his outstretched hand towards the appliance sat in the corner, haphazardly set upon a table much too old and far too small to really be sure of keeping it in place. She turned back to him brightly. 

“That's a television.” She said, and then he could see her brain start to engage, the cogs and whatever else her head was filled of start to move in conjunction with each other, and her face fall. Her hands drifted up in front of her face as she opened her mouth to explain to him. “Uh, so a television is where-”

“I know what television is, Lewis. I meant what the hell is that thing? It looks about as old as I am.” Bucky sat forward and swiped what he assumed to be the television remote from the ancient coffee table in front of him. It creaked ominously as he removed the weight from it, and he shook his head. Bloody place was falling apart in front of his eyes.

The girl watched him in silence as he tried in vain to power it on with the remote - the button worn and half-hanging out of its casing - and eventually gave up, throwing himself forward out of the couch and thumping the three paces it took him to cross the room and slam an irritated finger onto the ‘on’ switch. The television screen flickered for an instant, a small white dot forming in the centre of the screen as the back of it whirred. A clunking noise started up from the base of the appliance, and Bucky took a half step back in case it blew up in his face. He couldn’t afford, he thought with a dark looking passing over his expression, to lose any more limbs. 

After a full minute, the screen faded into life, as though it really couldn’t be bothered to do so and was only reluctantly mustering the energy because he’d been so insistent about the whole thing. 

“Where are the rest of the channels?”

“Excuse me?” The girl said from behind him, knees still tucked up under her chin as she spoke. 

“The rest of them. There's-” he counted quickly ,flicking the faded channel button that only showed an ‘up’ arrow - the counterpart ‘down’ arrow long since rubbed away - on the remote with more force than was strictly necessary, cycling all too quickly through what the television had to offer. “-Four. That's not right. This must be broken.”

“Woah, dude-” Darcy leaned forward from her perch on the couch with a surprising amount of speed and snatched the remote out of his hand before he could bounce it off the edge of the coffee table in anger. “Chill.” 

He turned to her with a deep frown painted across his face, and she looked up at him with wide blue eyes. Bucky could see the motion of whatever it was that was playing out on the television screen behind him reflected in them. She shook her head, palming the remote from one hand to the other for something to do as she gazed up at him. 

“Barnes, they didn't even have television when you were a kid. And now you're bitching about four channels?”

“Even on the run I had cable.” He muttered, and Darcy popped an eyebrow despite herself.

“Are you always this miserable?”

“Only when I’m stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere with some girl who thinks coffee shares an inherent molecular structure with petroleum.” Bucky snapped back, running his hand through his hair in frustration at his situation. On the whole he thought he’d prefer to be back on ice in Wakanda, whatever shit might have been going on there around his unconscious body.

“Where in Gods name are we, anyway?” He said, sitting down heavily on the arm of the couch, his weight threatening to tip it slightly. 

“Scotland.” She said quietly from the other end of the couch, and Bucky blinked. 

“Fucking Scotland.” He said, shaking his head again. “And it looks like someone finally invented time-travel, by the looks of this place, as I can only assume you mean Scotland in the 1970s.” He gestured around them with his remaining arm. The girl stared back at him passively. He supposed there wasn’t an awful lot to be said to that. 

“Well.” He said, getting to his feet and cursing under his breath as he stumbled slightly; still caught off balance by the uneven weighting he was learning to cope with. Bucky didn’t miss the way the girl moved in his direction when he tripped, a move tempered only slightly with hesitation on her part and he hated her all the more for it. 

He found himself hating Steve a little as well, just a brief flash of anger that fled from one corner of his mind to the other in an instant, for sticking him with a babysitter who couldn’t have been more than a quarter his age and who looked at him with pity-filled eyes like she wanted to fucking heal him. 

Bucky grit his teeth together, and the girl sat back instantly. 

“I am going to have a shower.” He said, not looking at her as he spoke. “Assuming the water actually runs in this godforsaken place.” Bucky heard a small intake of breath behind him, and closed his eyes, realising that something was coming his way and not quite able to put his finger on what it was going to be. 

“Can you, um…”

“What?” He said, snapping again and turning on his heel towards her - fast, but careful, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to stumble again. Not to see that look on her face. 

“I mean-” The little brunette shrugged helplessly from where she was sat on the couch, twisting the ends of the sweater sleeves around fingers that were constantly moving. Bucky stared back, unwilling to help her out, and the barest inkling of where it was that she was going with her line of questioning starting to occur to him. He didn’t like it. The girl sighed. “Can you wash yourself alright?”

 

“Jesus.” Bucky followed it up with a more creative curse word as well. “What the hell? I'm not-”

“Yeah okay, you're not disabled, I get it.” She said, twisting her hands together still like she was wringing water from a shirt, her words tumbling from her in a haste to try and make it right. “I'm not saying you are, I'm just asking in case you can't and-”

“Yes. I get it. I'm missing an arm, not a brain.” He cut across her tersely.

“And the polite gene, apparently.” She muttered under her breath. 

 

\-------

The water did run, although it spluttered out brown at first. 

Bucky put his nose to it and sniffed, gingerly, having had a close history with blood and the way it smelled when mixed with a variety of different base matter. It was, he found, mainly dirt and rust from the inside of the pipes. A good five minutes run out had the water - more or less - clean. 

It was cold, and only managed to achieve a barely lukewarm temperature after he’d been stood under it for fifteen minutes. The spray, if one could call it that, spurted with ineffectual flow from the shower head which was permanently fixed at a height too low for him to stand under comfortably. It hit his chest somewhere around his sternum and ran down his torso, carving a cool path all the way down his legs and pooling around his feet. 

Awkwardly he ducked his head under the spray, bending his knees and resting what remained of his left arm on the cracked tiles that lined the wall. The cool water, tinged with the barest hint of warmth, trickled into his hair. Bucky closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

Suddenly the water turned boiling hot, scalding across his skin. He jerked back with a pained shout and lost balance, frantically grasping with a hand he no longer had before his brain kicked into gear and attempted the same with the other. He toppled backwards over the edge of the bathtub, crashing through the thin shower curtain and ripping it clean from the curtain pole. 

Bucky, seeing stars and groaning slightly, lay across the floor with his legs still hanging over the edge of the bathtub, soaking wet and wrapped in the shower curtain. Just as he was getting his bearings, the bathroom door swung open and hit him square in the head. He swore, loudly, and from the half-open door he heard the girl splutter out an apology. There was a thump and, turning his head, he found a pair of big blue eyes gazing at him from around the door. 

“Are you okay?” She asked with concern, fingertips wrapped over the edge of the wood as she peered down at him, face framed by dark curls. She appeared to be kneeling on the floor, wedged into the space she’d allowed for the door to open without actually hitting him with it. Again. 

Bucky looked down at himself. “I'm naked, Lewis.” He said indignantly.

“Yes, I, um, I can see that,” she said, closing her eyes as she spoke and he rolled his own in a response that she wouldn't see. “But are you okay?”

“Aside from being burned alive by boiling water, falling on my ass and then being assaulted with a door? Yes. Peachy keen.” He grumbled, pulling himself into a sitting position and massaging his temple. He rested one foot against the roll of the bathtub and let the other flat on the floor. 

“Alright.” She answered, still with eyes squeezed tight shut. “I'll, uh, I'll leave you to it, then? Unless you need a hand…?” She trailed off, the faint question losing heart less than half way through her trying to ask it.

“A hand.” Bucky repeated flatly. 

“Yes, a - oh.” He could practically hear her thinking. “I'll just let you get on with it.” She said quietly. The girl pulled the door shut, or tried to, the bottom of it catching on the uneven floor where the topmost hinge was dangling and leaving the door lower on one side than the other. She pulled back enthusiastically, both hands on the door knob, and it slammed shut with a loud groan.

The curtain rail, already only clinging to its fixing with a prayer and a small amount of stubbornness, gave up the good fight and clattered to the floor as the ceiling shook in sympathy with the doorframe. It struck Bucky’s right shin and bounced.

He swore again.

\--------

After righting himself, with some difficulty, and hauling the door open from where the girl had managed to stick it fast; Bucky stomped his way back to his bedroom and into the clothes Steve had left him. Steve’s old clothes, it seemed, too tight across the chest because seventy years and change hadn’t taught him the size of his own body yet, and too long in the leg because he still forgot he was taller now. 

Bucky rolled the hems on the jeans and resolved not to breathe too hard in the shirt. There wasn’t much he could do about the left sleeve, flapping uselessly at his side. He scowled at himself in the small mirror that hung on the wall by the bed, conveniently just below head height so that he had a really good view of his own collarbone, and not much else. 

He clattered his way back down the stairs into the living room, and threw himself onto the couch. The girl, who was sat at the kitchen counter on one of the mismatched stools, looked up at him and smiled. Bucky couldn’t understand how she managed to continue being so chirpy. He rolled onto his back and let his hand rest on his stomach as he stared up at the ceiling. 

Minutes passed, culminating in a high whistle followed by the pouring of water. The girl padded across the floor towards him, her step a little cautious. She set a mug in front of him on the rickety little coffee table and stepped back, nodding at him encouragingly. Bucky looked up at her darkly. 

“Seriously? You're trying to off me twice in one day? I'm almost impressed.”

“I put, like, three sugars in it.” She protested. 

“Jesus. Going for the long game, huh? Death by diabetes rather than instant poisoning.” Despite himself, he rolled onto his side and reached for the drink, sniffed it experimentally. Then took a small sip. Then spat it back out into the mug. “Three? With what, tablespoons? A fucking dump truck?” Bucky stared up at the brunette who stood in front of him, still smiling, albeit uncertainly. 

He set the mug back on the table, the liquid sloshing and nearly spilling over the edge. 

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could get you to stop making coffee?” Bucky said, squinting up at her from his position on the couch. “I don’t know what it is that you’re actually good at, but it’s not that.” 

“You don't even know me.” She suddenly burst out, hands fisting at her sides. He sat up then, looking at her properly, taking in the anger that she was obviously trying to keep inside. Bucky fought back a quirk that threatened to crook the corner of his mouth into a smile. Instead, he raised a finger and pointed towards her. 

“Correct.” He said, leaning forward, resting his elbow on his thigh. “That's about the one thing you've gotten right about me so far, Lewis, and more than that I don't want to know you either.”

“Jesus, you're an asshole.” The girl said, cheeks flushing a deep pink. 

“Bang on, sweetheart.” He did smile then, settling back onto the couch and resting one leg over the other, ankle to knee. He raised one eyebrow at her, tilting his head to one side and letting his eyes run over her. Taking in again the sloppy sweater, the way her jeans hung from her hips and the smiley faced earrings he was just noticing dangling from her earlobes. “And you’re a civilian.”

“I'm not a civilian.” Lewis snapped back hotly, her forehead furrowing in consternation. 

“Right. So you are what, exactly?”

“I'm…” She trailed off, jaw working as she struggled to form the words. “I’m an intern.”

Bucky stared. The girl shifted from one foot to the other in front of him, cheeks still pink and the flush starting to colour her throat as well. 

“I don’t even - I don’t even know what the fuck that is.” He said, waving his hand dismissively towards her “But I’m stuck with you.” She stared back at him, and for a moment he thought she was going to haul off and hit him. Instead, after a long moment and her teeth biting into her lower lip, she turned on her heel and stomped towards the door, letting it bang shut behind her. 

Darcy leaned against the crumbling brickwork of the porch, and flared her lighter in the oncoming darkness. It was only four in the afternoon but already the shadows were drawing in, the sky heavy and overcast above her head. Taking a drag on the cigarette she held between her lips, she exhaled hard and wished she knew how to say no.

Unknown Number: How's it going?

Darcy glanced at the three little words flashing on her phone screen, and sighed. Your friend is the biggest asshole this side of Tony Stark, and no wonder HYDRA kept him so long? Probably not what the soldier wanted to hear.

Unknown Number: How's it going?

Bucky stared at the phone, once he'd managed to extricate it from his jeans pocket. You've dumped me with the most annoying person I've ever met and if I had both arms there's a chance I might have garrotted her already and made it look like an accident? Probably not what Rogers was expecting to hear. Well. There was every likelihood that he'd be expecting it, but he wouldn’t be pleased.


	3. Chapter Three

Bucky stared at the phone in his hand, the text message - innocuous enough to anyone else, certainly, but James Buchanan Barnes wasn’t far enough gone that he didn’t remember well enough the Steven Grant Rogers of the 1930s, and what sort of thing he really meant when he said ‘how’s it going?’ 

He was being chastised. 

From thousands of miles away. 

By text. 

Bucky sighed. 

\------

“Care to share?”

“With you?” Darcy asked flatly, not really a question and resolutely not turning her head from where she was staring out over the valley, the sky above them grey and angry, clouds starting to gather. She did, however, pluck the cigarette from her lips and jerk it back towards him over her shoulder. Bucky took it, fingertips brushing against hers slightly, and wisely opted not to comment on the bright pink lipstick mark around the filter.

Bucky sucked it in, almost sighing to himself in pleasure as the end glowed fiercely, then let out a delicious breath of smoke that curled its way around his face. It has been, he thought, far too long since he'd had the simple satisfaction of a cigarette. Tipping his head back and closing his eyes for a moment, revelling in the sensation of it against his tongue, he tapped the girl lightly and made a motion to pass it back to her.

She turned then, looked him up and down in silence and shook her head. “Going inside”. She mumbled. “You finish it, if you want.” With that, she squeezed past him, his large frame taking up most of the space in the small porch. He stepped as far to the side as he could manage to let her pass, her body still brushing up against his in the tiny space. 

Bucky finished the cigarette, slowly, resting his ass against a wall he wasn’t entirely sure could support his weight. He stared up at the sky, and dragged the phone back out of his pocket, the burning stub of cigarette between his lips, smouldering and dying, as he did so.

“How’s it going?”

He grimaced, looking at Steve's text again and grumbled under his breath to himself about mollycoddling people. He shoved the phone back into his pocket, text unanswered, and dropped the cigarette nub to the ground, crushing it under foot. 

\------

Bucky pushed the door open and ducked his head back into the cottage. Before he could manage to open his mouth, or even get his whole body into the house, the girl whirled on her heel to face him.

“Listen. I know you're pissed off. You're stuck somewhere you don't want to be, you're a hundred years old and you've only got one arm now. I get it, I do - I'd be hacked off as well. But it's not my fault.” She paused, cheeks pink again and voice rising as she spoke, not quite shouting but not far off it. Bucky blinked and managed to coordinate himself into the cottage fully. 

“Lewis-”

“-so if you really can't be nice to me, just do me a favour and say nothing at all. Because I don't deserve what you're doing right now.”

With that, she stumbled past him and clattered her way up the stairs. Frowning, he dropped into one of the mismatching stools at the kitchen counter, and laid his head on his arms, watching the stairs. The girl didn't reappear. Bucky waited up long into the night, eventually pulling open cupboards and the refrigerator, finding a stash of protein bars he presumed were meant for him. 

Tearing one open with his teeth, holding the bar awkwardly in one hand as he did it, he chewed thoughtfully. 

\-------

Bucky was woken, in the early hours of the morning as the night was dying and the sun starting to think about making an appearance, by the wracks of a nightmare. He’d dropped himself onto his bed - the springs wincing and groaning in protest at his weight - around midnight, shucking off his clothes awkwardly and leaving just his boxers riding low on his hips.

He was not overly surprised at being woken by a nightmare. What was surprising, was that it wasn't his.

From his room two doors away, he could hear the girl - Darcy, he reminded himself - shaking, the soft cries into the pillow that she made as she moved awkwardly in her sleep, disturbed and faltering. Bucky rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling which faded back into focus as the sleep drifted from his eyes and mind. 

She whimpered. 

Without really thinking about it, he found himself at her bedroom door. He nudged it open and looked across the tiny room at her small figure as she tossed and turned. He could see sweat beading on her forehead, the deep line of her furrowed brow as she jerked and rolled in her sleep. Her fingertips grasped at the sheets, digging in as the material bunched around her and tangled across her bare legs.

She cried out again, louder this time with her face scrunched up and one hand thrown over it as though shielding herself from something. From whatever it was that was invading her sleep, he supposed. Her body tensed under the sheets and he noticed for the first time how small she was. 

Bucky raised a hand - his only bloody hand, he thought with a scowl that creased his face - and thumped the door hard. The sharp sound of it echoed around the little room and the girl jerked awake with a start, chest heaving and hair sticking to her face. Shoving it back and gasping for air, she looked over at him in confusion, the last grasp of the nightmare slipping from her skin as she sat bolt upright. 

He regarded her for a moment, then retreated.

\-------

"Thanks." Darcy said later over breakfast, blessedly quiet other than that for once, reaching across the kitchen counter from where she was sat opposite, to pour milk into his cereal for him. He tapped against her wrist sharply with the back of his spoon, and she nearly dropped the carton in his lap.

"I can pour milk." Bucky said gruffly, not looking at her and digging the spoon into the soggy cornflakes. Too much fucking milk he thought, shovelling it in anyway and swallowing it down without pausing to chew. He could feel her eyes on him, and chancing a quick glance from the very corner of his eye, he found her standing across the other side of the counter and clutching the milk to her chest.

"You lost something?"

Darcy shook her head. Snatching up her own bowl - dry, and that was the sign of a disturbed mind for sure, he thought - she sat back down again opposite him and ate her breakfast in silence. Neither of them spoke again, though he could feel her eyes upon him from the other side of the counter. Bucky carefully kept his head down and his eyes off her. 

When finished, he slung his bowl in the sink and made his way back upstairs. 

\--------

“Do you want something to eat?”

Darcy had appeared, hours later at the doorway of his bedroom, perkier now that there were whole hours put between the memory of her nightmare. He was laying flat on his back, trying and failing to regain the sleep he’d lost the night before. Sometimes he wondered if he’d just had too much sleep in his unnaturally long life, a balance tipped too far one way, and was now doomed to spend the rest of his days blinking at the world and chasing something that didn’t belong to him any more. 

“Not if you're offering to cook it.” Bucky said without looking at her. 

“O- okay.” Came the hesitant response. He could feel her peering in at him, hovering on the threshold of the bedroom door, and rolled onto his side away from her with a grunt. He could hear that she was still hovering at the door, and - a sudden flash of Steve, disapproving and judgemental, ripped across his mind - sighed to himself before rolling back to her. He fixed her with a deep look before speaking again. 

“Can you actually cook?” 

“I, well…define cook.” Darcy shrugged from the doorway. Today, he noticed, she had managed to find matching socks, though these ones were bright pink and clashed horribly with the orange sweater she’d pulled on. 

He closed his eyes for a moment, both at her response and at her clothing choices. “Can you,” he said, eyes still shut. “Can you put something on a plate that's preferably warm and won't actually kill people?”

“I can heat things up.” She said, somewhat defensively.

“Heat things up.”He repeated flatly. “Kids today.”

“I'm not a-”

“Yeah, you're not a lot of things, Lewis, believe me. Right, listen to me.” Bucky rolled himself off the bed and planted his feet on the wooden floorboards. He looked up at her, and pointed his index finger towards her. “You're going to follow every instruction I give you, without complaint, without question, and at the end of it we’ll have something that the World Health Organisation wouldn't classify as a biohazard.”

She shot him a dirty look, which he returned in kind.

“It won't kill you to take directions from someone for once.” He said, and Darcy snorted in response. 

“You can talk. And you haven't even tried my cooking.” She said, putting her head to one side, resting it against the doorframe as her arms folded over her chest. 

“Tried your coffee. That's enough of a test case for me, kid.”

\------- 

“Turn the heat down, for god's sake.”

“It'll cook it quicker.”

“No, it'll burn the edges fast and leave the middle frozen.” Bucky said, with an amount of patience he wasn't aware he had. She looked at him quickly, frustrated, but turned down the heat. He nodded from his position behind her, lounging in one of the stools at the kitchen counter.

“Just a bit of chilli - that's not a bit.”

“I like it spicy.”

“Your insides won't.”

She made a dismissive noise, stirring the pot with one hand whilst the other reached blindly for her glass of Coke. Darcy made a loud slurping noise as she finished the last of it. He toyed with the straw in his, the one that she'd dropped in silently before sliding it over to him. Something in him had wanted to protest it, but he’d managed to keep a lid on it. 

“Alright, my insides won't like it, even if you possess an iron clad stomach.” Bucky leaned forward and swiped the rest of the chopped chilli from the board, before she could add any more. Darcy twisted then to look at him, knife in one hand and the other on her hip. She gave him an exasperated look but said nothing, turning back to the chopping board at her side. 

“You don't slice onion like that.”

“I do. Watch me-”

“You'll take your fucking fingers off if you hold it like that.”

“Barnes-”

“Oh god, come here.” Unable to watch any longer, Bucky moved around the counter and behind her, chest pressed against her back and she froze. When he spoke, his mouth was so close to her ear that his words moved the stray tendrils of hair that she'd not managed to capture in her loose ponytail. 

“Hold that.” He said, reaching across her and nudging her hand into what he considered a better position on the onion. Satisfied, he moved back and covered her other hand with his own. 

“Rock it, don't slice it. It's easier that way.” Guiding her hand slowly with his, he rocked the knife over the onion, sliding back and forth. The onion fell apart, neat sections sliced off under Bucky’s steady hand.

“See?” He said, letting go of her hand but remaining behind her. Darcy nodded mutely, her own hand gripping the knife like a lifeline. 

“Thanks.” She said softly.

“Can't have both of us with only one arm.” He answered, and standing as he was behind her she couldn't see the way the edge of his mouth crooked a little as he said it.

\--------

“So you don't cook.”

“I can cook some things.” Darcy said defensively. He didn't reply but raised an eyebrow at her from across the table, poking the dinner they’d somehow managed to make together around his plate, waiting for her to expand on her answer. “You know. Like ramen. Stuff like that.” 

Bucky shook his head, unsure quite exactly what ramen was but assuming it would shortly be a part of his life if he didn't take further steps to prevent it.

“Doesn't your boyfriend want dinner on the table when he gets home from work?”

“Okay. Firstly, men can get their own damn food if they want to go out being all hunter-gatherer, and second-” She cut herself off, tapping her fork irritably against the side of her plate as she spoke. “You're winding me up, aren't you.” He maintained a poker face from the other side of the table, and Darcy narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously before scooping up more food. 

“How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty four.” Darcy said around a mouthful of food. 

“Twenty four. Jesus.” Bucky shook his head, shovelling food on to his own fork carefully. “At your age I was living with Steve. Even he could cook; I mean he could barely lift the pot to do it but he knew what to put in the thing.” 

“I do alright.” She said absentmindedly, poking at what was left in her plate. “And I live with my friend, too. Well. She's moved out now but we did live together. For a bit.”

“Where is she now?” Bucky asked, mildly interested. 

“Oh. With her boyfriend. He's, um, out of this world.” She snorted in laughter, and Bucky missed the joke. She calmed herself, eventually, slugging back more Coke and then fixed him with an interested look. “Do you miss Steve?”

“Yes.” He said shortly. 

“Are you…” She wrinkled her nose at him. “I mean, did you guys, um, you know-”

“I don't think I've ever known anything less, Lewis. What the hell are you on about?”

“Are you together?” She blurted out, biting her lower lip into her mouth as soon as she’d spat out the words at him. 

“I - what?” His fork paused halfway to his mouth as he processed her question. 

“Well, I just thought… You guys are really close, and like, Steve stormed an enemy fortress to get you back in the war and stuff.” She shrugged, head tilted onto her shoulder as she deliberately looked away from him across the table. “And then the whole Bucharest thing. It was all over the news. Even in the US.”

“Is that what passes for a relationship these days then?” 

“It's not just me.” Darcy said, slightly offended. “There was a whole chapter about it in history class.”

“Kids today spend history class discussing whether me and Steve Rogers were going at it in the middle of a war?” Bucky said faintly, fork still hovering in front of him. 

“I don't know that it was phrased quite like that-”

“No. Just - no.” Bucky said firmly, fork finally finishing its journey to his mouth. 

\---------

TEXT; JB: You know kids have history tests on whether or not I was fucking you?

TEXT; SR: Two days. Two days and this is what I get back?

TEXT; SR: I believe current consensus has you being fucked by me, actually.

TEXT; JB: I hate this century.

\----------

“You wanna watch tv?” 

She’d cleared away her plate and his, dumping them in the sink and with them a great deal of washing up liquid. The 1930s James Barnes that still lurked somewhere inside him winced at the waste of it, but he clamped down on the urge to say something. She was looking up at him expectantly, and Bucky realised she’d asked him a question. 

“Hmmm?”

“Television. You want to watch it?” She gestured towards the ancient heap of electronics held together with dust and prayer, and he grimaced internally, but dropped himself into the couch anyway. Darcy looked surprised, as though she’d been expecting him to do anything but, and he was a little surprised himself, truth be told. 

The girl punched the on button, and whilst it was thinking about powering up, perched herself on the opposite end of the couch. Bucky leaned over the arm of it, restlessly rotating the nub of his left arm. He seemed to be plagued with phantom itches, something that frustrated him to no end. Darcy looked at him from the corner of her eye, but managed not to comment. 

The television fired up and spluttered into reluctant life. The pair of them watched in silence. 

“What is this?”

“It's called Cash in the Attic.” 

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Why is that man orange? Does he have a skin complaint?”

Darcy grinned. 

“Just an incurable addiction to spray tan.”

And so it went on. Ridiculous programme after even more ridiculous programme. Bucky couldn’t work out quite why it was that so many of them revolved around property; whether renting it, buying it, refurbishing it, or painting it in garish colours he was certain no person could actually like. 

Yet there was something about it that was a little addictive. He found himself sinking further into the couch, relaxing his body into the age old cushions that had long since lost any semblance of bounce, making odd comments and, on occasion, gesturing towards the television when something truly stupid was going on. 

“Why aren't they listening to Kirsty? She's a goddamned expert. It makes no sense to knock down that bathroom wall-”

Bucky just about managed to catch himself before he finished the sentence; biting back the rest of it and swallowing it down, before he realised that there was no response from Darcy. 

He glanced down and found that the girl was fast asleep, curled into his side, resting just under the nub where his left arm ended. Her legs were curved under her, dark hair fanned out over her face. Hesitantly, he brushed some of it back with his hand.

She looked peaceful. The thought kicked him in the gut as it passed through his mind.

“Wake up, Lewis.” Bucky said, poking her in the shoulder with his index finger, though managing to temper the force with which he did it. “I can't carry you.”


	4. Chapter Four

Darcy moved, slowly, reluctantly, to a sharp prod between her ribs, and yawned deeply, shifting her body away from the persistent movement, pretending it hadn’t disturbed her sleep. She curled into herself like a cat, snuggling further into Bucky’s side, eyes scrunched up and letting out a small sigh. He wriggled where he was sunk into the couch, trying to dislodge her enough to wake her up properly. 

“Mmmpf.” She mumbled sleepily, with her eyes still closed, swatting at the disturbance. “Quit it.”

Bucky bit his lip and poked her again, earning himself a tap on the wrist from the little brunette now curled into his side. He frowned and edged away from her, letting her head slip down further, now resting against his rib cage. 

“You need to wake up, kid.” He said firmly to her head, all dark curls and nothing else that he could see from the only angle he had, looking down at her. She sniffed in response, one hand flopping onto his thigh. Bucky sighed and rolled his head back, resting it on the back of the couch. 

He could just about see the clock from where he was sitting and, assuming it was working - which was a fairly dangerous thing to assume in this place, he thought - it was late. The television flickered on in front of him, some late night talk show promoting apparent celebrities he’d never heard of and didn’t care to know anything more about. Darcy shifted slightly against him, chest rising and falling evenly once more as she dropped back into a deeper sleep. 

Bucky could feel his eyes start to droop, and stifled a yawn. He looked longingly at the stairs, but in honesty his bed was no more comfortable than the couch, even with an extra body taking up space. He blinked slowly, sleep creeping up on him now as well, and glanced back down at the girl at his side. 

“Fine.” He grumbled, mostly to himself because Darcy was lost to the world. “If that’s the way it’s gonna be, so be it, but I’m getting comfortable, kid.” This he delivered to her head, warningly, and she merely shuffled closer in her sleep. Bucky sighed, wondering when exactly he’d become a soft touch. 

Bucky shifted her as best he could, digging his hips down into the cushions for leverage and wrapping his arm carefully around her waist to position her better, and eventually made enough space to swing his legs up onto the couch. 

Twisting so that he was lying on his back with his head on the arm, Darcy now wedged more or less between him and the back of the couch, Bucky closed his eyes. He couldn’t reach the remote, not with the girl now entangled with him, and even if he could, the damn thing wouldn’t turn the television off, and so it rumbled on quietly in the background. 

The last thing he remembered before the darkness took over him completely was a perky Irish man asking an American how they’d manage to lose weight for a film role. The answer, apparently, was lettuce and tears. 

\-------

Bucky was awoken by weak sunlight trying to push its way through the windows, uncovered by the dingy curtains as neither of them had thought to pull them closed the night before. He stretched languidly, his one arm extended above his head before he dropped it back down to his chest with the intention of scratching himself. He would have expected, had he given it any real thought at all, to feel the warmth of his own body under his palm. 

What he found instead was a small hand splayed over his chest, and that discovery jerked him properly from sleep, sitting upright and shaking his head. Darcy, head falling back as he moved, blinked her eyes open slowly. Finding herself pressed up against him, legs entangled with his own, she yelped and struggled backwards as fast as she was able to do so. Bucky lunged forward to stop her before she caught him somewhere sensitive. 

“Move,” He said, somehow managing to capture both her wrists in his one hand. “But slowly. I’ve already lost one appendage I was attached to, I still have others I’d like to keep a hold of if it’s all the same to you.” Darcy, who was frozen in place with one knee between his legs and the other outside his hip and wedged between that and the back of the couch, nodded. 

He released her, and sat back holding his breath as she extricated herself carefully from him, not looking him in the eye as she did it. Back turned to him and the couch, she mumbled something he interpreted as going-for-a-shower, and disappeared up the stairs without a further word in his direction. 

\------

She avoided him for most of the rest of the day, and eventually Bucky dragged himself up the stairs and back onto his own bed. It felt uncomfortably empty compared to the couch, and he arranged his arm behind his head as he dropped it onto the lumpy pillow, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and refused to process that thought any further. 

Eventually, after risking his life in the shower once more and then struggling into clean clothes, he thumped his way down the small staircase and found Darcy sitting amidst the remains of the television. 

“Had enough of property programmes, huh?” He said drily, and the little brunette looked up at him, screwdriver in hand. She’d taken it right down to the bits and pieces inside it, spread over the threadbare rug around her. He could understand the desire to destroy it, but would have preferred if she’d managed to last another couple of days. Bucky wasn’t about to admit it, but he was developing a fair interest in Grand Designs. 

“Um, well, kind of.” The girl said, gesturing with the screwdriver towards the board she had arranged on the coffee table in front of her. “I thought it might be an idea to upgrade it.”

“Upgrade?” Bucky looked at the mess surrounding her, and wondered what upgrade meant nowadays. 

“Mmmmm.” She said, focusing back on the board in front of her, eyes narrowed. “From analogue, to digital. So we can get more channels.”

Bucky stared at her. “And you can do that?” 

“Yeah. Well, probably. This thing is pretty old.” She wrinkled her nose, looking down at the dusty board. “I have the ADC already, and that’ll convert the voltage from analogue to digital number. I just need to charge up the internal capacitor and measure the discharge across the resistor. Then I can make any adjustments, and after that the comparator bank will feed the logic circuit, or at least it should do, and generate the appropriate code.”

Bucky, for his part, understood that the girl was talking in English, and would have been able to recognise around 10 other languages as well, but that was as far as his comprehension went around what she’d just said to him. 

“Right.” He said, eyeing the debris spread across the floor and finding himself doubting whether his only source of entertainment would be back in once piece any time soon. “Got any more cigarettes?”

She gestured once more with the screwdriver, towards the kitchen counter where both an open packet of smokes and a lighter lay. Bucky brightened and moved towards it, snatching them up and heading for the door. He paused, hand on the doorframe, and looked back at the little brunette. Her head was bent over the board as she twiddled with the connections, muttering to herself. 

Bucky shook his head, and disappeared outside.

\-------

TEXT; SR: Having fun?

TEXT; JB: If you think sheep are fun.

TEXT; SR: How’s Darcy?

TEXT; JB: Possibly re-wiring the television so it blows up when I turn it on.

TEXT; SR: If she is, you probably deserve it. 

\-------

“What is that?”

Bucky, having - slowly, ekeing it out like a man on death row making his final meal last - smoked no less than three cigarettes and stalked the parameter of the cottage and back again a few times, finding nothing but a small flock of disinterested sheep, had finally made his way reluctantly back into the cottage. The television was, amazingly, back in one piece and not currently emitting smoke, although he also noted it wasn’t turned on. 

Darcy was stood by the table, beaming over at him, and beckoning him to sit down. He went, cautiously, eyes fixed on whatever it was that was displayed on a plate in front of him. 

“It's lasagne.” She said proudly. 

Bucky stared at it. It was, if you looked really closely, and he was trying not to, sort of red and white. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten lasagne, but he was roughly certain it hadn't had the consistency of melted cheese. He poked it experimentally with a fork and it let out a puff of air that sounded an awful lot like defeat, and deflated in the middle.

He sat back in his chair, eyeing the monstrosity and still gripping the fork tightly.

Darcy, stood across from him, looked at him expectantly with bright eyes that blinked at him from the other side of the table. Bucky groaned internally. A good part of him wanted to tell her that it was the worst thing he’d ever seen, but the look on her face made him pause. He looked back at the plate, the - he couldn’t really bring himself to call it lasagne - thing she'd created, wilting rapidly. 

Bucky grit his teeth together and worked his jaw into saying something. 

“Why?”

“Why?” She repeated after him, somewhat thrown by the question.

“Why…” He gestured at the plate in front of him with the fork. “Lasagne?” 

“I saw it on a cooking show when I was testing the television.” She brightened, standing up a little straighter behind the chair. “I chopped the onions like you showed me.” Bucky's heart sank. He’d brought this on himself. He was going to have to eat the fucking thing. 

“And, uh, and this?” He pointed to a second plate, trying to prolong the moment until he was going to have to eat it, and Darcy bit her lower lip. 

“Well, that’s garlic bread,” She said carefully, twisting her hands around the back of the chair as she stood behind it. Bucky poked the mess with his fork and that, at least, didn’t collapse like the main course. It did, however, crumble slightly at its blackened edges. “But, um, I forgot to put the garlic in the garlic butter? So I guess it’s probably just… Toast.”

“Great.”

\-------

He’d somehow forced down around a quarter of the lasagne when he had to tap out. She’d certainly put the onion chopping skills to work, he thought, spitting out the excess onto his plate when she wasn’t looking. His gums stung a little and he washed the sensation away as best he could with a glass of coke, wishing it was beer. 

The girl was fiddling with the television which mercifully hadn’t exploded into a thousand tiny mosaic shards when she’d switched it on, trying to tune the additional channels she’d managed to feed into it. Bucky was a little impressed, but tempered it with the lingering taste of what he was fairly sure was mostly raw onion. 

Running his tongue across his teeth and wincing slightly, he turned and caught a flash of movement from outside the window. Bucky’s shoulders set back immediately, and he gripped at the table edge with his hand. He looked across at the little brunette, still engrossed what she was doing. 

“Darcy.” 

“Mmmmm?” She said in response, absentmindedly and not looking up from the remote. 

“There's someone outside the house.” He said in a low voice, getting up from the table and crossing the room in three short strides to drop to his knees beside her. Bucky could feel her tense against him. 

“What?” She said, instantly panicked. “What do you mea-” 

He clapped his hand firmly over her mouth and hissed into her ear, mouth brushing against her. “Be quiet, and do exactly what I tell you. I won’t be of too much use.” Blue eyes wide and half her face covered behind his large hand, she nodded at him. He let his hand drop from her mouth and Darcy looked up, expression worried but looking to him for instruction. 

“Go to the kitchen, get the biggest cooking instrument you can.”

She crawled on hands and knees across the room to the kitchen area, and pulled open the cabinets. Bucky remained where he was, a careful eye on the door, watching for any sign of movement from the windows again. He saw the movement again, definitely a person, most likely a man, certainly carrying something. 

A frying pan appeared above the kitchen counter. 

“That'll do.”

It waved back at him slightly. He closed his eyes briefly and counted to ten before continuing. 

“Come back here.” 

Darcy shuffled her way back to him awkwardly, gripping the frying pan. He hauled her behind him slightly, shielding her as much as he could from the doorway. The doorknob rattled, then turned slowly, the door moving open. Bucky could feel Darcy shake behind him, and without looking back at her tipped the frying pan upwards from where she’d let it drop. 

The figure pushed its way into the cottage, turning to shut the door behind them, and Bucky hissed “Now-” at Darcy, who stumbled forward towards the man, frying pan raised. She brought it down firmly on the back of his head and he let out a groan before crumpling to his knees and then onto his back on the floor. 

What he’d been holding, which turned out to mostly be an armful of filled plastic bags, toppled to the floor, the contents spilling out around his prone body. 

Darcy, standing over the figure with the frying pan still gripped tightly in both hands, looked back nervously at Bucky who got to his feet and moved to stand beside her. The figure on the floor raised a hand to his head and groaned loudly, squinting up at the pair looking down at him. 

“Fucks sake, Barnes.” 

Bucky grinned down at him. 

“Alright, Wilson?”


	5. Chapter Five

“You let her hit me with a frying pan, when you knew it was me?”

Sam was sat on one of the kitchen stools, leaning across the counter and tenderly rubbing the back of his head. He fixed Bucky with a glower as he spoke, and Darcy mouthed the word sorry at Sam, for the fifth time since she’d helped him up from the floor. 

“No.” Bucky said solemnly, shaking his head from the other side of the counter. Darcy passed Sam a pack of frozen peas, which the man pressed to the back of his head with a wince. She was putting away the groceries that Sam had brought, once she’d collected them up from where they'd rolled. 

“You didn’t know it was me?” Sam tried cautiously, mouth twisting, the words sounding unlikely even as he said them. The dark haired man across the counter snorted in response, and took a drag of beer, letting it wash around his taste buds before responding. 

“No, I knew it was you a mile off; I encouraged her to hit you with a frying pan.” Bucky threw him a wide grin. “We're in the middle of the Scottish highlands, Wilson. Nothin’ much else to do for fun around here.” Sam glared at him and pressed the packet of peas to his head harder, as though being more aggressive about it would help. 

“If you want to borrow this, I'll look away and tell Steve he fell.” Darcy proffered the frying pan in Sam’s direction.

“Sassy little shit when you get going, ain’t ya?” Bucky told Darcy and she snagged his beer bottle from him in response and drained the rest of it before smiling and placing it back in front of him. “Picking on the disabled guy.”

“Only thing disabled about you is your mind.” Sam said bluntly, popping the cap on another bottle and raising it to his lips, only half joking. He adjusted the pack of peas against his head and sighed as the ice cold packet nestled against the swelling, before turning towards the girl. 

“My ringing ears say you don't deserve this, but my heart tells me you've been led astray by the dark side.” Sam said, with a sidelong look at Bucky, offering a familiar white and green cup to Darcy, who grabbed it from him with a wide smile.

“Oh, oh my god. I think I'm in love.” She exclaimed, pulling the plastic lid off it and taking a deep breath in. 

Sam grinned.

“Not with you.” She amended, taking a long sip.

Bucky, sniffing, frowned in her direction. “You said you didn't drink coffee.” He said suspiciously.

“I don't drink coffee,” She answered with her eyes closed, sticking her nose directly above the cup and sighing happily. “I drink venti caramel macchiato with extra foam, soy milk and Kenyan dark roast.”

Bucky blinked. Then, apparently giving up on Darcy, who was no longer paying attention to anything except the cup in her hands, turned back to Sam. “Where the hell did you get that, anyway?” He said, gesturing towards the branded cup. “We're in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“You don't know Starbucks, do you?” Sam said drily. “They're everywhere, man. Everywhere. You’d have to go a lot further than deepest, darkest Scotland before you ran out of Starbucks.”

“How did you know?” Darcy asked, ignoring Bucky and finding herself torn between draining the coffee as quickly as possible and making it last. She compromised by taking small sips quickly. 

“Some star-spangled birdie had a word in my ear, so to speak.” Sam winked at her. “Think he had a tip off from outer space.” 

“God bless Thor.” Darcy said with a small smile. 

“Him and Jane good?” Sam asked conversationally, sipping at his beer with a languid motion and settling himself so that he was leaning across the counter towards Darcy. She sighed slightly and dropped herself into the remaining stool, both hands clasped around the cup and staring down into what remained of the steaming liquid before she replied. 

“I guess.” The girl gave a one-armed shrug coupled with an offhandedly awkward expression, not looking up at Sam. Her nose wrinkled a little. “They’re, um, I don’t know. Kinda busy, off-world or whatever.” She ran a hand through her tangled curls and finally met his eyes with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

Bucky, having snagged a beer to replace the one she’d stolen from him, ran his thumb over the open mouth of the bottle, feeling the condensation wet against his skin, looked at the twist on Darcy’s mouth and thought about Steve. 

Sam, realising he’d inadvertently hit a nerve, backtracked as fast as he could with a cough. “This one been treating you right?” He said, gesturing with his beer bottle towards Bucky. Darcy’s eyes met Bucky’s, and he raised a slow eyebrow at her, inviting her to let loose on him. 

“Well, you know.” Darcy said, raising her cup to her lips and taking another long drag on the coffee concoction before continuing, a mischievous smile playing over her face. “Once you catch onto the fact that he’s got the mindset of an old man with a walking stick yelling ‘get off my porch’, it all kind of falls into place.”

Sam turned to Bucky with a wide grin on his face. 

“I like her.” 

“Well, I don't.” Bucky said, narrowing his eyes at both Wilson and the girl, taking another long drag on his beer bottle. 

“Oh, and to think how my poor heart beats just for you, Barnes. However will I continue on without your good favour?” Darcy clasped her hands over her heart mockingly and tilted her head back in an approximation of a swoon as she slipped off her stool and passed by them, Sam grinning at her still. 

“You're an idiot. You've been watching too many period dramas, Lewis. It ain't good for you.” Bucky hollered after her and she flipped him the bird over her shoulder as she went, pausing only to hoist the laundry basket on one hip before disappearing down the tiny corridor towards the utility room. 

“You're the idiot.” Sam said, twisting in his seat and eyeing Darcy appreciatively as she walked away from them, jeans rolled up to her ankles and bare feet padding down the hallway as she hummed under her breath. His head tilted to allow himself the best angle on looking at her ass as she disappeared. 

“Hey.” Bucky said sharply, and hit him in the arm. “Eyes up, Wilson.” 

“Why? She reserved or something?” Sam said, sitting back upright. 

“No.” Bucky scowled back at the man sat across from him. “Not my fault I was brought up insteada dragged up like some I could mention.”

“Is that what you call it.” Sam said, one eyebrow raised as he adjusted himself on the stool. Bucky grunted in response and said nothing more. They could vaguely hear Darcy singing off-key in the utility room. Bucky turned his head slightly toward the noise, and grimaced. 

“You know,” Sam started, voice low as he looked over at the other man. “If you like her, just say something.”

“She hit you harder than I thought?” Bucky countered, fixing the other man with a hard stare from across the kitchen counter. “If you’re feeling out of sorts, I can always give it another go. See if it recalibrates you.”

Sam chuckled, and threw the thawing pack of peas back into the freezer drawer and kicked it shut with one easy extension of his leg. “Deflection is the first resort of a desperate man.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but pushed a plate across the counter in Sam’s direction. 

“Lasagne?” 

\-------

“You stayin’ here, then?” Bucky asked, running his eyes over Wilson. 

“For tonight.” Sam nodded. “Then I gotta get to the next place.”

“Classified?”

“Safest way.”

Bucky nodded, and didn’t press further. He could make a decent guess at where Wilson might be headed next, or at the very least to whom he was headed. Steve and Bucky weren't the only ones who'd walked away with their names on a high level shit list. 

Yet another reason to be fucked off that he was stuck in the middle of nowhere, with other people finishing what he'd inadvertently started. 

“So where you want me to bed down later?” Sam asked, stretching out his arms over his head with a satisfied groan. Bucky didn't answer, not overly interested in where Wilson chose to lay his head. The man turned to Bucky with a grin. “Could bunk in with Darcy.”

Bucky looked up then, and fixed Wilson with an unimpressed look.

“Floor, bathtub, couch. Pick one, or I'll pick for you.” 

“Couch is fine.” For some reason Wilson was still grinning at him. Bucky wasn't sure why. “Bathroom up here?”

Sam was standing at the foot of the stairs with one arm pointing upwards, and Bucky briefly considered mentioning the temperamental water temperature and lack of shower curtain, but figured Wilson would find out soon enough on his own. 

“Yeah, man. Have at it.”

\-------

TEXT; JB: Whatever Wilson tells you, it's a lie.  
TEXT; SR: Listen, what you two get up to is your own business. 

\-------

Bucky gasped for air, cold water rushing around his head and filling his lungs, the pressure beginning to crush him from the inside out. He flailed, feeling utterly helpless and knowing there was nothing he could do to save himself.

“Bucky.”

A touch on his arm coupled with the sound of his name jerked him awake and he sat bolt upright, the covers sliding off him and sweat dripping down his bare chest as it heaved. He blinked his eyes open and managed to focus them, adjusting to the dark and finding Darcy on her knees beside his bed.

Her eyes were wide in the shadows and fixed unwaveringly on him. 

“What are you-” he coughed, his throat dry, and she silently handed him a glass of water. Bucky drained it in one, gulping it down gratefully and passing it back to her. His brain struggled to remember when it was it had directed his sorry carcass upstairs to bed, and tried again. “What are you doing?”

“Well, not sleeping, for one.” Darcy offered him a one-sided and somewhat crooked smile, face caught in the moonlight that found its way through the gaps in the curtains. “You were shouting.” She explained. 

“Sorry.” He mumbled to his own chest, breath still catching in the back of his throat as his body lagged behind in realising that he wasn't actually drowning. 

“It's okay.” Darcy said, her hand still on his arm. “I know what it's like-” the girl caught herself and stopped, shaking her head a little, before changing direction abruptly. “You did it for me, I figured I should return the favour.”

“And Wilson was complaining about the noise.” Bucky added, raising an eyebrow.

“He didn’t say a word.” Darcy answered loyally, eyes firmly fixed just left of his face. 

“You’re a shitty liar, Lewis.” Bucky observed, and she met his gaze then, squinting, not denying his assertion but not confirming it either. “Wilson on the couch?” He asked, suspicion rising in his throat and surprising him, uncertain as to where that had come from. Darcy tilted her head to one side before answering. 

“Where else would he be?” She shrugged, confused. 

“Bathtub.” Bucky replied, and Darcy shook her head, apparently not looking to pursue her line of questioning. 

“Okay. I just wanted to, well, help you get to sleep I guess.” The little brunette said awkwardly, rubbing one hand on the back of her neck as she looked at him. The camisole she wore - dark, about the only colourless thing he’d seen on her so far - hung over her thighs, hitched slightly as she was knelt in front of him, acres of pale skin exposed in the moonlight ending in dark lace of the shorts she wore underneath it. 

“I don't sleep much.” He shrugged, pulling his eyes away from her legs and looping his arm around his own bent knees as he sat up in the small bed. 

“You slept on the couch.” She pointed out. 

“That's because you were pinning me down.”

“Oh.” She blushed, deep enough he could see it even in the darkness. “I didn't mean-”

“It's fine.” Bucky said shortly, cutting across her. “Guess you didn't get too much sleep the night before either.”

“No.” She said quietly, gaze not quite meeting his eyes. “I don’t sleep too much, either. Not recently anyway.”

Silence fell between them as Bucky wondered whether recently meant since she’d been living with a known murderer in a tiny cottage in the Scottish Highlands. He couldn’t exactly blame her if it was him that had been giving her nightmares. Lord knew he had enough of them for his own, all wearing his own face and grinning back at him from the darkness. 

“You don’t have to be here, you know.” He said gruffly, but made no move to dislodge her hand on his arm. 

“I don’t mind.” She said softly, and Bucky felt words dry up in the back of his throat watching her. Darcy looked to her knees, curls tumbling over her shoulder and hiding her face from him as she continued to speak, haltingly. “I… I mean, if… If you slept better with someone being there-” 

“I ain’t sleepin’ on the couch with Wilson.” He said flatly. Darcy’s head came up then, and her eyes met his, big and blue even in the darkness that shrouded the room. 

“I wasn’t suggesting Sam.” She said quietly. 

Bucky’s jaw worked, tensing and clenching as he stared back at the little brunette kneeling by his bed, her small hand still laid against his arm. He moved his arm, shaking her off and shoving his hand through his hair roughly. Darcy sat back, leaning away from him and looking hesitant. Bucky shuffled towards the window and pulled the covers back roughly. 

“Come on, then.” He said, resolutely not looking at her. A beat passed, and neither of them moved. Then Darcy slowly got to her feet and eased herself into the space he’d left for her. Back to him, she laid her head carefully on the pillow. Bucky, breathing hard, gazed at her before pulling the covers back up and over her. 

He laid himself back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and his shoulder just brushing against the girl’s bare back. Bucky could hear her breathing, shallow and quick, breaking the silence of the small room. He rolled to his side, facing her, and let his eyes trace over the bare skin of her back exposed by the camisole she was wearing. 

“I don’t bite, Lewis.” 

Her shoulders moved slightly as she huffed with quiet laughter that she was trying to suppress, face turned into the pillow and muffling the noise. He poked her between the shoulder blades, mouth curling into a grin of his own. She turned her head over her shoulder to look at him, dark curls framing her face and falling across the pillow. The ends tickled over his bare chest. 

“You know, I was kinda impressed.” He said quietly, back pressed up against the wall underneath the window and still brushing his bare skin against hers, the bed was so small. Darcy blinked at him before responding. 

“The television? It's easy when you know how. Well, I mean, you gotta-”

“No, the frying pan. You really cracked him good. Got a nice little swing on ya, Lewis.”

She huffed again, shaking her head. She shuffled herself over so that they were facing each other, and Bucky pushed back so that he was even more firmly against the wall. The bed creaked ominously as he moved and he thought with an internal eye roll that it would be just his luck if the thing gave way with both of them in it. Wilson would have a field day. 

“Would you prefer me to be on that side?”

He looked at her in confusion, and she stared steadily back at him before realising he wasn’t following. 

“I mean, if I’m on that side-” She tapped his left side with hesitant fingertips, reaching over his chest to do so and her bare skin brushing against his own where the covers didn’t reach up high enough. “-Then, um, I’d-”

“Have more space.” He finished for her, unable to listen to the stuttering. 

“I didn’t mean because of that,” Darcy said, tilting her chin up defiantly. “Just that I wouldn’t be accidentally lying on your arm or anything.” She paused, and he looked over at her. “Nobody likes that, Barnes. Not even normal people.” 

Bucky laughed then, a small noise that felt as rusty to him as it probably sounded to her, and stopped almost as quickly as it started. Darcy gazed back at him, and he shook his head. 

“Fine.” With that, he looped his arm up and under her waist, earning himself a small squeak of surprise from the girl, and shifted her upwards at the same time he slid his hips under, rolling his body into the dent her body had left in the ancient mattress. 

Bucky held her tightly to him as he moved, her legs tangled with his before he deposited her gently onto the other side of him. Her hands clutched at his chest briefly before she pulled back from him, breathing a little hard. 

“Happy now?” He said gruffly, rolling his head back onto the pillow. From the corner of his eye, he could see her nodding cautiously. “Right. Go to sleep, then.”


	6. Chapter Six

Bucky awoke to three things. 

Firstly, the strangely comforting weight that was Darcy, laying with her head against his chest and one leg hooked over his own, and secondly the smell of pancakes in the air. 

The third was the decidedly odd sensation of a decent night’s sleep. 

He eased himself out from under the girl, remembering at the last moment that the gentlemanly thing to do would be to arrange the pillow back under her head and pull the covers up and around her. Bucky paused, looking down at her snuggled into the bedclothes, and felt something odd tighten in the centre of his chest. Shaking it away, he hauled on a pair of sweatpants - too long in the leg, Steve’s again - and shut the door quietly behind him before making his way down the stairs. 

Wilson was stood in the kitchen, clad only in a pair jeans that hung low on his hips, whistling a revoltingly cheerful tune which stopped abruptly as he turned in the middle of flipping a pancake and spotted Bucky. He broke into a wide grin. 

“Why,” Bucky asked, running his hand through his sleep-tousled hair and squinting across the room at the other man. “Are you so fucking chirpy this early in the day?”

“A better question is why are you still so grumpy this morning?” Wilson countered, sliding a pancake out of the pan and onto a plate. He nudged it across the worksurface towards Bucky as the other man approached the kitchen area, and looked up at him with a sly smile. “Spending the night with a girl is supposed to improve your mood.”

Bucky briefly considered how many moves it would take to incapacitate Wilson, and whether he could manage it with one hand, a plate and a pancake. His brain helpfully supplied that it was possible to complete in five steps, but also that he would lose the pancake in the process and therefore overall probably not worth the bother. 

Whatever else Wilson was or was not, from the smell of it he appeared to be able to cook and it was a skill Bucky was fast learning not to take for granted. 

He dropped himself bodily with a grunt into one of the stools at the kitchen counter and glared at the back of Wilson’s head as the man turned his back to him and commenced his whistling once more. 

\------

TEXT; JB: I repeat, Wilson is a lying rat bastard. Do not listen to him.  
TEXT; SR: I didn’t think that bed was big enough for two. I’m impressed.   
TEXT; JB: You sure he’s even American? What do you actually know about him? You can’t just pick people up off the street, Steve, it’s not the ‘40s anymore. He has shifty eyes.   
TEXT; SR: So you didn’t spend the night with Darcy in your bed?

\------

TEXT; SR: Guess ‘lying rat bastard’ is my type. 

\------

TEXT; JB: It wasn’t like that.   
TEXT; SR: Just remember what I said about Thor. 

\------

“Pass that maple syrup, will ya?” Bucky said thickly, mouth stuffed full of a pancake he was wholly unwilling to tell Wilson was probably the best he’d ever tasted. Then again, he thought to himself as he swallowed hard, it wasn’t as though his memory was anything to shout about. There wasn’t an awful lot to compare it against. Hydra - good at evil plans, not overly concerned with quality breakfast foods. 

“Did you lose a leg in the middle of the night?” Wilson said without looking around, spatula in hand and kitchen cloth slung over his bare shoulder. 

“No?” Bucky answered, forking tipping in his hand as he found himself momentarily thrown by the nature of the question.

 

“Then get it yourself.”

A fork, Bucky thought, was an infinitely more versatile weapon than a plate, and one much overlooked by those poor souls burdened with less creative minds than his own. As he slipped from the stool and snatched the open bottle from the shelf by Wilson’s head with a growl, he considered the appropriate level of force it would take to pop an eyeball with somewhat blunt cutlery. 

Not actually as much required as some might be otherwise led to believe. Bucky was fairly confident that, of the three people currently residing in the small cottage, he was the only one who had the requisite life experience to confirm that point of information.

The thought gave him cause to smile at Wilson as he squeezed an obscene amount of maple syrup onto what would be his third pancake. 

\------

Darcy appeared, cautious and wrapped in yet another brightly coloured and oversized sweater that fell over her hands. She hovered at the foot of the stairs, one hand shoving back handfuls of dark curls that seemed to have only been improved by being rumpled against a pillow. Bucky concentrated on what was left on his plate, which wasn’t a lot. 

“Darce,” Wilson turned with a wide grin, and Bucky glowered at him. “Pancake?”

The girl nodded, eyes still sleepy and half-lidded as she padded forward across the hardwood floor and found her way into the stool next to Bucky. The other man leaned across the counter and tipped a fresh one from the pan onto a plate for her. Bucky passed her the maple syrup wordlessly, still staring at his own plate. 

She took it, her fingertips brushing against the back of his hand as she grasped at the bottle without really looking. Bucky felt the touch of it like it burned across his skin, and shook his head hard. Wilson, doling out coffee, fixed him with a calculating look from the other side of the counter that Bucky pointedly ignored. 

\------

“You’re going so soon?”

“Ah, Darce, I know you’d rather spend your days with this handsome slab of man than that crotchety old timer, but Sam Wilson is in demand.” He grinned down at the girl, one hand on the doorframe and the other grasping at his bag. Bucky, taking advantage of Wilson’s coffee making skills whilst he had the chance, threw him a one finger salute from where he was standing.

“Before I forget, brought this for you, Darce.” Wilson bent at the waist and, pulling something from his duffel bag with a flourish he presented it to Darcy who lit up as she took it from him. Bucky, leaning against the back of the couch with one hip resting against the furniture, looked over the edge of his coffee mug at what Wilson had given her. A brushed chrome laptop, all sharp edges and clearly not off the shelf. 

The girl settled back onto the couch, tucking her bare feet up under her and opening the computer eagerly. 

“Something else from a red and white striped benefactor?” She asked, tone vague and barely looking up to say it, engrossed in her new toy. 

“Actually, that’s from a differently star-orientated pal.” Wilson answered, looking down at the girl with arms crossed over his broad chest and an indulgent smile on his face. Bucky watched as Darcy connected the dots and the smile fell from her own face as she glanced up at the other man quickly. He felt a significant urge to hit Wilson. 

“Oh,” She said quietly, running her fingers over the keys carefully, watching as it booted up in front of her. “Is Jane, um, okay?” Darcy kept her voice light and careful, but there was an edge running through it that even Sam couldn’t ignore. He shot Bucky a look that the other man did nothing to help with, and then turned back to the girl on the couch. 

“She’s okay,” Sam said cautiously. “Busy, you know? I mean, I didn’t see her in person. She’s still, uh, in Asgard I guess.”

“Yeah.” Darcy said softly, and neither man was certain she was actually answering Wilson. “So this is encrypted, right?” She said, forced cheerfulness in her voice and fingers starting to fly over the keys, tapping away and firing commands into the system. 

“Uh, yeah.” Sam answered, again locking eyes with Bucky across the room, who shrugged in response. “So you can use it without any issues. Maybe catch up with your family or something, right?”

“Right.” Darcy said, shoving the laptop to one side and drawing herself to full height, pasting a wide smile over her face that a half-blind village idiot could see was fake. Bucky shot Wilson a look, but said nothing and remained where he was. 

Sam reached out and drew Darcy into a one-armed hug. 

“Don't let yourself get stir crazy here, girl.” He said firmly into her hair. “You need anything, just call. Someone’ll come.” Darcy nodded silently into his chest before pulling back and shoving her hands into her pockets.

Wilson looked to Bucky, who merely nodded from where he was stood. The other man gave him a sloppy-as-hell salute, then slung his duffel over his shoulder and disappeared out the door.

“I like him.” Darcy said decidedly, as the door closed firmly in front of them. 

“You would.”

\-------

“Hey,” Darcy’s voice broke through his quiet contemplation and he looked over at her, perched at the other end of the small couch with her bare toes just inches from his thigh, despite her being as curled up as she could make herself. 

Bucky looked at her. She flipped the laptop where it sat atop her knees so that the screen was facing towards him. A monochrome photo of a young man in smart Army dress uniform stared blankly back at him. Bucky blinked. Darcy smiled, face half-hidden from him behind the lip of the laptop. 

“It’s you,” She said needlessly, for Bucky could recognise his own face, even if it sat on a man he felt little connection towards. 

“Great.” He said shortly, turning away from her. From the corner of his eye, he could see the uncertain look pass over her face and tug at the edges of her own eyes, forehead wrinkling as she tilted her head. 

"I thought you might..."

"Might want to be reminded of a man I'm told I used to be and can barely remember?"

She snapped her mouth shut with a click, and the laptop shortly followed suit. Darcy hugged to to her chest, wrapping her sweater-clad arms around it with a twisted mouth as she tried and failed not to gaze over at him, sat at the other end of the couch.

Bucky closed his eyes, hoping that if he did so she’d find something else to go look at. He was rewarded moments later by a shift and a twang in the springs as the girl hauled herself up and off the couch. Without opening his eyes, he swung his legs up and onto it, stretching his body out and sighing a little as he did so. 

 

He must have fallen asleep, though he didn’t recall doing do, for the next he knew Darcy was standing over him looking expectant and holding out a mug toward his face. Bucky squinted up at her with one eye cautiously open and his hand flopped over his own head. 

“What is it?”

“Coffee.” Darcy shoved it further towards him, both hands wrapped around the mug. This one, he noticed, was as faded as the slate museum mug, but instead that a person would always have a smile if they lived in Argyll. 

“Oh god. I think I'll just lie here and die instead.”

“Oh don't be so dramatic.” She put the mug down on the coffee table, neglecting to use a coaster, and tapped him on the legs in a movement he presumed meant she wanted him to move them. 

Bucky did not move. 

Darcy flopped herself down on his legs anyway, tangling her legs up with his and shooting him a pointed look as she did so. Bucky turned himself awkwardly onto his back, somehow widening his legs around her body, and Darcy slid down into the space between them with her own legs hanging over the edge of the couch and back resting half on his left leg and half on the cushions. 

“Can you just, for once,” She said, looking at him from behind a curtain of dark curls that her restless fingers played with, twisting and pulling at them as she spoke. “Try to see a positive?”

“Alright.”

She waited, for all of thirty seconds. 

“And?”

“Oh, I was hoping the positive would be you being quiet.”  
Darcy rolled her eyes at him, and plucked at the fraying cuff of her sweater. “I'm just trying to do my job, man.”

“Keep the cripple occupied, yes, I'm aware of your job.”

Darcy stared. “That's - that's not the job.” He raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Well, it is. Sort of. But it's you that's making it that way. It wouldn't actually kill you to be nice, you know.”

“You never know.” Bucky said sagely, not looking at her. “I wouldn't want to take the risk.” He was rewarded by her jabbing her toes into his thigh.

\-------

He’d thrown around three quarters of the coffee down his throat - wincing as it burned its way down into his stomach and sat uncomfortably atop his bladder, in a way he was absolutely sure was not usual for coffee - when Darcy made a small sobbing noise from the other end of the couch. 

Her face paled and she shut the laptop slowly.

“Lewis? Someone finally tell you Father Christmas ain't real?” When he received no response he finally looked up and over at her. She was sat, still between his legs, fingertips digging into the edge of the laptop so tightly that they were turning white.

“Lewis?” He said slowly, sitting up with some difficulty from where he’d been lounging on his back, his one arm pushing into couch cushions with far too much give to allow him purchase, leaning toward her.

“Don't.”

Her voice was quiet, strong and lacked any of the bounce he'd come to associate with her. Bucky shook his head, knocking sleep-mussed hair from his eyes. “Lewi, I-”

“I said don't.” She snapped, scrambling up awkwardly from the tangle of their legs, managing to stand up and flinging the laptop behind her, just missing him. “Don't snipe at me, don't speak, don't breathe loudly. In fact, just don't come near me at all.” He sat back, staring at her in surprise. Her chest heaving, fists clenched at her sides and - most surprising of all - tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

 

“I cannot deal with your bullshit today.”

With that, she disappeared across the room and up the wooden stairs, small feet thumping across the landing and ending with the closest thing to a slammed door that the cottage was able to muster.

 

Bucky stared after her, then hauled himself off the couch and following, padding his way up the stairs and finding himself outside her room. 

“What's wrong.” He said to the closed door.

Silence.

“What's wrong, Lewis.” He accompanied with two fingers tapping against each word, leaning his armless shoulder against the doorframe.

A sniff. And then -

“I told you to leave me alone.”

“You did.” He said.

“I do what you ask.” She snapped back.

“Rarely.”

“Leave me alone.” 

He sighed.

“As you keep telling me, I've cornered the market on being miserable, so I can't very well let you take over my patch, can I?”

There was a pause, followed by the door opening. Darcy, eyes reddened and cheeks tearstained, looked up at him with no small amount of suspicion in her blue eyes.

“Did you just make a joke?”

He laughed. Short, sharp, and significantly rusty, but a laugh nonetheless.

“You opened the door for just for that?”

“Rarer than rocking horse shit.” She countered. “Be a fool to miss it.”

“You gonna let me in there?” It was less a question and more a statement, the way he said it. The little brunette looked up at him from red-rimmed and glassy eyes, for all joke he’d made for her. She sniffed, but stepped backwards into the room, leaving the door open for him to follow. 

Her bedroom was a riot of colour, and just looking at it made his head ache. Photos adorned almost every inch of the four small walls, and she’d thrown multicoloured pillows on the floor and on the tiny bed. Everything clashed, horribly. 

"What the hell is all this?" Bucky said in disbelief, looking around him, forgetting for a moment why it was that he was standing in her room at all. She looked up from where she had dropped herself into a crossed legged position on the small bed - he noticed hers sagged even worse than his - and offered him a weak smile.

"It's, you know," she waved a hand vaguely at the walls. "Home."

Bucky looked around again, took a step towards the nearest wall and peered at the photos stuck liberally across it. Darcy, grinning, her arms around another girl he assumed could only be the famous Jane Foster. Darcy, woolly hat jammed over her thick curls and looking serious. Darcy beaming next to an older man who looked reservedly back at the camera. Darcy and an enormous blond man he could only assume was Thor. 

He tilted his head looking at all the photos, the snapshots in time that had captured Darcy from all angles it seemed. He traced a finger across one of the photographs, showing Darcy, the girl who must have been Jane, and the huge blond man. They were squeezed together in order to fit into the frame, the man taking up most of it and the girls caught in the middle of laughter. 

“I don't have a home.” Bucky said, without thinking, as he looked at the photograph. 

Darcy was silent for a moment, then looked up at him with wide blue eyes. “You kind of do, you know.” After a pause, he snorted and stepped back from the wall, turning on his heel to look at her. 

“What’s wrong, kid?”

She looked up at him from where she was sat, all cross-legged and with bare feet tucked into the tangle of her legs. Bucky was struck by how young she looked. 

“My, uh, my dad.” Darcy started, hands twisting together and not looking at him. “I got an email, he’s… He not well. Actually, he’s in hospital.” Her tongue ran along the edge of her lower lip and then she bit into it, chewing her teeth into the soft skin there. 

Bucky wished he’d left it, not followed her, not asked. 

He was ill equipped to deal with it. His own parents had perished decades since, succumbing to disease or old age, he knew not which, believing him dead and a war hero to boot. If he’d thought about it at all, let his mind wander to their faces, he would have been merely glad that they’d not lived to know what had really become of their eldest child. 

“It’s okay.” Darcy said quietly, presumably sensing his discomfort. 

“No, it’s not.” He snapped back, harsh in the small room. “It’s obviously not. Someone you care about is sick whilst you’re stuck half a world away with someone who you hate-”

“I don’t hate you.” She sounded confused as she cut over him, and Bucky unconsciously took a step back from her. His jaw worked as his brain tried to work out what to do with what she’d said. 

“I- I don’t - Well, you should.” He finished, lamely. 

“Never been very good at doing things I should.” Darcy said with a one-shouldered shrug and a crook to the corners of her mouth that hinted at a smile she couldn’t quite manage properly. 

“Can’t say I have too much trouble believing that.” Bucky said, with a barely-there smile of his own. He dropped himself onto the edge of her bed, the frame protesting loudly about the addition of his weight, groaning and creaking loudly as he stretched out. “What are you doing here, Lewis? When you could be with your family, your friends?”

“Steve asked me.” There was that almost nonchalant shrug again, and he stared back at her. 

“Jesus. Do people just do what Steve asks now? No questions?” Bucky mumbled, mostly to himself. Darcy grinned then, properly grinned. 

“You tell me, Barnes.” She said, rubbing the back of one hand over her reddened eyes as she paused. “Seems to me like you do what Steve asks as much as anyone else.” He rolled his eyes and knew he wouldn’t be able to argue the toss on that one with her. Bucky Barnes had been doing what Steve Rogers asked nearly a century ago, and he wasn’t likely to change that habit now they’d entered the modern world. 

“It seemed a little more straightforward than the last thing I did for him.” Darcy’s voice was even, but Bucky jerked his head up to look at her in the eye. 

“What else did you do?” He asked, curious what use Steve had found for this little brunette. Darcy cleared her throat and tugged again at a loose thread on the cuff of her sweater, pulling it so that the knit closed tight around her wrist until she let it dangle free once more. 

“I, um, shut down the systems on The Raft. So he could get to Sam and the other guys.” 

Bucky found himself blinking again. 

“You hacked into the world's most secure prison, and now Steve has you on babysitting duty?”

“Oh,” she said, looking a little sheepish. “I don't think he knows, actually. He called on Thor, being as he was about the one not involved directly in - well, in all that - and, I mean, Thor's great but he's mainly smashy-smashy and it called for a bit more subtlety.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, struggling to reconcile the idea of Darcy with the concept of subtle.

“So he - Thor that is - called Jane, who called me and, well.” She gave him a small look, one that spoke a lot more than what she was actually saying. “No one knows who I am. I'm not important, not a scientist or a superhero, so it's easier to disappear into the background again afterwards.”

Bucky shook his head. 

\-------

They found themselves back downstairs, Darcy insisting that she would cook and Bucky grimacing but supervising from the other side of the kitchen counter, hanging over it and nudging her elbow when he thought she was doing something wrong. 

Darcy, a little brighter than she had been, though her eyes at times belied where her thoughts had strayed, was testing Bucky on his knowledge of the modern world. 

“I know what Instagram is.”

“You do?” She said doubtfully, not looking back at him as she poked at the stew bubbling away in front of her. 

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, shoving a handful of grapes into his mouth and proceeding to talk around them. “A security breach waiting to happen.” Darcy, turning to him, rolled her eyes and threw a grape at him. It bounced off his forehead and he wasn’t quite quick enough to catch it before it rolled on the floor. 

She’d set up the laptop to play some godawful music and, to make matters worse, she started to sing along to it. He didn’t know the song, didn’t care to, and Darcy might have been able to breach the best security system the world had so far come up with but she sure as shit couldn’t hold a tune. 

“Oh, kid.” Bucky said, shaking his head. “Can’t sing, can’t cook. What’s a fella to do with you?”

She turned and fixed him with a look. “A gentleman would focus on the good bits.”

“I ain’t no gentleman.”

“Yeah, yeah, and I’ve got no good bits.” She finished, rolling her eyes. “You’re becoming a broken record, Barnes.”

“I didn’t say that.” His voice was low and he somehow found himself behind her, almost unconsciously moving to mirror her. She stiffened slightly before relaxing, her back close to his chest but not quite touching him. 

“What were you gonna say then?” She asked, turning her head a little over her shoulder toward him, enough that her hair tickled against his arm but not enough that she was actually looking at him. “Lay it on me, Barnes, I'm a big girl.”

Bucky watched himself like he was a bystander to the whole show, like he'd stepped outside his own body and let someone else take over, as he dropped his head to the girl’s shoulder and brushed his lips over the bare skin there, where her sweater had dropped and exposed part of her back. He heard Darcy exhale sharply, but she remained fixed in place with her head still slightly turned toward him.

Bucky's eyes closed and he pressed his lips harder to her skin, feeling the girl shiver underneath his touch. His hand ghosted up her arm and he felt her still under his hand, could feel the unsteady thump of his heart as it battered its way against his rib cage. It was almost painful to feel, and he sucked in a breath, his mouth wet over her. 

His head dropped, resting his forehead against her shoulder and his hand gripped into her arm briefly before he pulled it away and let it drop. 

“Sorry.” Bucky muttered into her skin, head still leaning into her, and he pulled away from the girl.


	7. Chapter Seven

Bucky pulled back, blinking, and caught Darcy’s blue eyes - wide and bright under the kitchen light - staring at him over her shoulder. 

“I didn’t - I-” His eyes were fixed on the patch of bare skin still exposed by the slip of her sweater. Bucky backed away further and the girl turned to him properly. Her eyes were fixed upon him and her head was tilted slightly, mouth a little open with lips pinked and wet, and he looked away from that. Hard. 

He backed away further, swearing slightly as his back hit the kitchen counter. Darcy was staring at him, the wooden spoon she’d been using to stir whatever the hell was in the pot on the oven tipping in her fingers. A wet orange splash fell from the curve of it and splattered against the tiled floor. She looked down abruptly and, with her eyes finally off him, Bucky fled. 

\------

Bucky took himself to bed, without another word and by way of the shower, which sputtered out two minutes worth of lukewarm water that then abruptly turned cold. Head hung as far forward as he could manage without toppling, he couldn't find it in himself to curse the shoddy temperature valve. The ice cold water hit his body and he winced, but stayed stood under it and pretended as though it wasn’t his version of atonement. 

Laying on his back on top of the blankets with the lights out, he laid his one hand across his chest and stared at the ceiling. Bucky almost willed his mind to go blank, to do nothing but count the cracks that split across the ceiling above him and were picked out by the weak moonlight edging its way through his bedroom window. 

And yet.

And yet he didn’t. Maybe he’d spent too long with a mind wiped clean of any independent thought, emotions too likely to compromise him and so held firmly at bay - or maybe, he was just a fucking masochist. Either way. Bucky Barnes lay on his back, stared at the ceiling, and replayed over and over the agonising moment he’d kissed his lips across Darcy Lewis’ bare shoulder. 

\-----

Four days later, and they'd been dancing around each other like each one of them was holding a lit match and the proverbial kindling could burst into flame at any time with just a single wrong move.

Bucky, unable or unwilling to sleep, spent his nights laying on his bed and listening to the occasional whimper from the other bedroom, usually accompanied in greater or lesser degree by the sound of Darcy tossing and turning. Once, he got to his feet and was halfway to the door before he caught himself, then turned back and dropped bodily onto the bed again. 

Darcy appeared at breakfast the night after that, eyes bloodshot and hair tangled, her face pale and her movements slowed. Bucky, slumped in one of the kitchen stools, eyed her but said nothing as she stumbled her way downstairs and blearily into the kitchen. 

Sleepily she made her way to the fridge, pulling it open and staring into it for what felt like an age. Bucky, sat behind her at the counter, clenched his fist around his spoon as her t-shirt rode high on her legs and exposed a large expanse of pale thigh. He could see the gooseflesh rise on her skin as the cool air touched across it. Skin he had no right to be looking at. 

“You plannin’ on shuttin’ that thing anytime soon?” He barked finally, and the girl jerked backwards, throwing a glance over her shoulder that was far too reminiscent of the way she’d looked at him the night he’d pressed his lips to her back, before snatching the milk out of the fridge and shutting the door firmly. Bucky shovelled the last mouthful of cornflakes down himself, and sent both bowl and spoon clattering into the sink before stalking back upstairs.

\-------

Bucky stood in front of what passed for a mirror, alone in his bedroom, and grimaced at what he could see of himself. Steve had left him some shirts, proper shirts, and he’d struggled his way into one with some difficulty. He presumed this sort of thing was what Steve had envisioned Darcy would be there for, but it’d be a cold day in hell that James Buchanan Barnes asked for help putting on a damn shirt. 

The left hand sleeve dangled, empty and useless, and if he’d been a poetic sort of man he’d have had to conclude that it was a damn good metaphor for how he felt at that moment in time. Had, in fact, felt for a while. As it was, he was a miserable bastard and all that flashed through him was anger and a good deal of frustration. 

“I can pin that up for you.” Darcy said quietly, from the doorway. He could feel her eyes on him, and hated it instantly, could see the waves of pity in her without even having to look to see it. Bucky turned away from her, shirt sleeve slapping pathetically against his torso. She sighed, and he could hear her footsteps as she retreated back down the hall.

When he emerged downstairs, throwing himself into the couch with a grunt, she was sat at the other end of it and barely looked up at him as she spoke. 

“Look, I’m not a nursemaid.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Does it come naturally?”

“What?”

“Being a dick. Does it come naturally, or do you have to work at it?”

Silence. Bucky thought of around five possible answers to her question, none of them remotely polite. On balance he decided that the path of least resistance was to remain mute under her narrow eyed scrutiny. 

“For fucks sake.” Bucky thought he heard her mutter under her breath, and jerked his head up in surprise, because he couldn’t recall her swearing before. Leastways, not in front of him. 

“Someone piss in your cornflakes, Lewis?” He’d half-managed to say, before he suddenly had a lapful of Darcy. The rest of the words died in his mouth as he looked up at the girl, her thighs straddled over his own and her hands cupping his face, tipping it up towards her. 

“You wanna kiss me? Go ahead and do it.” She challenged, only the slight tremble in her fingers giving away the cracks in her facade of bravado. 

“Who says I wanna kiss you?” Bucky said faintly, forcing his arm to stay by his side and not wrap around her waist and drag her closer to him. Darcy quirked an eyebrow at him, silently calling him out but not making any other movement, waiting on him. Bucky swallowed, and his eyes slipped unwitting to her mouth for an instant before tracking back up to meet her gaze. 

Darcy breathed deep, shifting slightly against him, and the clock ticked loud and long - and probably not correctly - in the tight, tense air of the living room. 

“Ah, hell-” He said, and pulled her down to him, hand sliding up her back and tugging her close. She sank down against him, chest to chest, and Bucky found himself with his mouth so close to hers, yet paralysed into stillness. His breath met hers, warm over skin, and he swallowed again, blinking and-

Her mouth on his. Gentle, at first, soft and pliant. Bucky sucked in a breath and, inadvertently with it, took Darcy’s lower lip into his, finding her tongue darting over him. Deepening, her hands tangling in his hair as he groaned into her mouth, hand finding its way south to the small of her back. 

His tongue slid against hers, tentative at first and then bolder, her hands moving back to cup at his face and he wished for a hot, bright moment that he still had both of his own, the better to feel more of her with. Bucky pressed up as he pulled her down, if it were possible, even closer to him, and the sensation of her mouth against his was warm and sweet and-

And gone. 

Darcy pulled back with some difficulty, one hand on either of his shoulders and a curtain of dark hair falling half over her face. Bucky stared up at her, his chest heaving a little, his arm still looped around the base of her spine. 

“Got that out of your system?” She said, a little breathless and with blue eyes that flickered across his own. Bucky nodded mutely, unable to work his jaw into forming words, and let his hand drop from her. He couldn’t seem to make his eyes fall away from her lips, pinked and kiss-swollen. Darcy nodded, and clambered off him somewhat unsteadily. 

“Right. You can quit being an asshole to me then.”

\------

Darcy barrelled downstairs two days after that to find a redheaded woman sat on the edge of the kitchen counter, quietly drinking a cup of black coffee. She had a pair of simple black jeans and a white v-necked t-shirt, hung low on her breasts, and for all the simplicity and girl-next-door-ness about it, there was something entirely dangerous emanating from her. 

“I, uh -” She stuttered, backing up towards the stairs as the other woman looked at her calmly. She backed up into a solid wall of muscle, and Bucky grabbed her arm before she fell into him. 

“Didn’t hit this one with a kitchen instrument then?” He asked Darcy, though his eyes were firmly on the other woman. 

“Doesn’t seem like a good idea.” She murmured back to him, eyes also still on the stranger sat in their kitchen. 

“You’re getting better at being right, Lewis.” Bucky said, as he coordinated himself around her small frame and moved towards the newcomer. The redhead said nothing, but her eyes were only on the dark-haired man who came to rest a few feet in front of her. Her legs were crossed neatly, one over the other, and the chrome heels of the black knee-boots she wore flashed as they caught the light from the window. 

“Natalia.”

“So you remember me now?” The redhead said with a smile that crooked the corner of her mouth upwards but didn’t reach her eyes. One foot ticked upwards as she regarded him. “And I was so hurt you didn’t recognise me before.”

“You don’t want the Winter Soldier to remember you.” He said evenly. 

“I can handle the Winter Soldier.” She countered calmly, and Bucky smiled briefly. 

“Yes,” He said, moving toward the counter and picking up the cup she’d placed upon it. He sniffed experimentally, then sipped at what was left before continuing. “I suppose you probably can.”

Darcy watched, mute, from the stairway. She’d back right up against the wall, arms wrapped around herself and Bucky watched her from the corner of his eye for all his attention was on the redhead at their kitchen counter. 

“Steve send you?” He said, letting his hip rest against the counter where she was perched, resting into her personal space but not quite touching any part of her. Darcy swallowed to see it. 

The redhead shook her head slightly before plucking the cup back from his hand, fingers brushing against his as she did so. Darcy noticed that there was a lipstick mark around the edge of it. Her fingers unwittingly went to her own, un-lipsticked, mouth, tracing the edge of it subconsciously. 

“Is there somewhere private we can talk?”

The redhead - Natalia, Darcy supposed - flicked her eyes briefly towards the brunette watching dumbly from across the room as she spoke, then turned her face back to Bucky. His head turned slightly as well, considering across her for the barest moment before he too spoke. 

“Upstairs.”

\--------

“You look well.” Natasha observed, turning on her heel and dropping lightly onto his bed, which creaked and sagged. “Domesticity suits you.”

“I don’t and it suits me about as well as a hole in the fucking head.” Bucky said, shutting the door firmly behind him. “Why are you here, Natalia?”

“You think you’re the only ones laying low after everything that happened?” She asked sharply. 

“You were on the winning side, if I recall.” 

“You and I both know that winning is subjective.” She said, laying back on the bed and resting her head back on one arm. “Besides, letting you two go somewhat sealed my fate.”

“Captain America thanks you for your sacrifice.” Bucky said drily, arm crossed awkwardly over his chest, and resting his back against the doorframe. 

“And the Winter Soldier?” Natasha asked, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “What does he say?”

“As little as possible.” 

“Ah.” She said, thoughtfully. “And what does Bucky Barnes say?”

“He says why the fuck are you here, Natalia?”

“And?”

“And thank you.” He said, grudgingly. She nodded approvingly. 

“What happened to the arm?”

“Because you don’t already know?”

“Indulge me.”

“Stark.” He said shortly, looking away and unwilling to elaborate. Natasha’s eyes swept over him, gaining more from his silence than anything he could ever put into words. 

“And T’Challa didn’t forge you a new one?”

“I went back under, Natalia, and when I woke up I was being hustled into a jet by Steve. Now I’m here, stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere, with a civilian, one arm and apparently an endless stream of visitors I didn’t ask for.”

“Touchy.”

“I’m always touchy.” He grumbled, but some of the fire had left his voice. 

“Not always.” Natasha said, the barest hint of their shared history colouring her voice as she spoke, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands as she leaned towards him. “Maybe you need to let off some steam.”

“Hard to do that when you’re cooped up in the world’s smallest house.” He said. 

“Be creative, Barnes.” Natasha said, standing up and stretching. “I know for a fact they didn’t wipe every emotion out of your system.”

“You ever plannin’ on telling Steve about us?” Bucky asked, pointedly ignoring what she’d said, because they both knew what she'd meant by it. “Our… History?”

“It’s not currently relevant.” She said, inspecting her nails as she spoke. 

“When does it become relevant?”

“When I judge the situation to be so.” Natasha answered smoothly. He frowned. 

“And if I wanna tell him?”

“No one is stopping you, Barnes.” She said shortly, looking up at him. “You asked if I was planning on speaking to Steve. I’m not. You can do as you wish.”

“But you don’t see the point.” He continued for her, resting one leg back against the door and unwittingly making it shake in the doorframe with the weight of him. She sighed. 

“I don’t know what good it would do.” The woman said simply. “He’s still processing all the things that happened to you. Working out the blame he feels for it. Knowing that we… Have a history - I can’t see how that would speed up the process. Do you?”

“I sure as shit hope you aren’t expecting me to tell you I loved you.” He said bluntly. 

“I certainly hope you weren’t thinking you’d get any of the like from me.” She snapped back instantly, one eyebrow arched and he saw, for a second, a flash of the young woman he’d known - before they’d stripped down her emotions liked they’d done to him, taking out the surplus parts and re-modelling them both into the weapons they were needed to be. 

“So you’re not here to declare your undying love for me.” Bucky said, sarcastically. “And you’re not here to tell me that you’ve confessed your sins to Steve and he’s on his way back to hear my input on the same. And you sure as fuck aren’t here to help me - how’d you put it? Let off steam.” 

Natalia smiled at him, cat-like, and he had a sudden burst of memory from the last time she’d burned off some of his steam. It hadn’t exactly been unpleasant, and there was a minute part of him eyeing both her and the bed behind her with a view to what creaking noises they might coax out of it. The only thing was, that same minute part of him that was frantically working on figuring out all the possible ways he might vent some steam had slapped some brunette hair and clear blue eyes on the girl and that pulled him up short like a hard slap in the face.

Bucky growled, low in his throat, and continued, ignoring the look on her face as he did so. 

“So why the fuck are you here?”

Natalia smiled again, although this version was somehow at the same time full of humour and also a sly knowing look, as though she were able to see right inside his head and the stupid fantasies it was intent on relaying to him. He glowered at her.

“Fixing this.” She waved a hand around her head, vaguely, though he knew instantly what she meant, and shook his head deeply before answering the girl. 

“You know, the whole puttin’ the band back together thing only really works if people were actually in a band before that. And if one member didn’t brutally murder the parents of another one.”

“Minor details.”

“Natalia…” He said, dropping his head so that his hair fell in his eyes before looking back up at her, one foot still resting behind him against the rickety wooden door. “You really think this shit storm can be fixed?”

She gave him a steady look, and it wasn’t one he remembered seeing on her face. He could picture a lot about Natalia, both clothed and unclothed, but the calm stillness she was currently exuding was a new one on him. There was something in it that gave him pause - a brief flash of consideration that, if the Black Widow could find peace, maybe there was still hope for his tired old bones. 

“Everything can be fixed. In time.”

He snorted at that one. 

“You sound like Steve. Hanging around with Cap has rubbed off your edges, Natalia.”

“Maybe hanging around Darcy will rub off yours.”

“How do you know her name?” He said suspiciously, and earned himself an incredulous look. He could see her roll her tongue across her teeth before she answered him. 

“I know her social security number, her SAT scores and the name of the crush she had in first grade. And you want to know how I know her name? You’ve been out of the game too long, Barnes.”

“Maybe I don’t want to play the game anymore.” He snapped back, and surprised himself with the truth of it. All his life he’d been fighting, even before the fall, before the war. Always fighting, always hunting for something he couldn’t quite grasp. 

“Maybe none of us have a choice.”

“She does.” Bucky said, his eyes flicking up towards the woman perched again on the edge of his bed. “Don’t bring Lewis into this, whatever the fuck it is you’re planning, Natalia.”

“She’s not a child, Barnes.” The redhead countered. “And you deciding for her isn’t her having a choice, either.” He grit his teeth together at that, knowing all too well that the girl was quite right in what she was saying. 

“Maybe your Miss Lewis can help.” She said, gazing across at him with clear green eyes that stirred a number of memories previously stowed away.

“She's not my anything.” He muttered.

“You keep telling yourself that, Barnes.”

“It's fucking odd. You callin’ me that.” He said bluntly, ignoring her comment. She smiled at him, a brief twist of her lips that held a lot more than just humour.

“Didn't think you'd prefer soldat.” Natasha said smoothly, and he shuddered involuntarily. “Or anything else I used to call you.” She ran a light hand up his arm, and that stirred his insides more than what she'd called him before. He swallowed the feelings down, for they came once again wrapped in an ugly knit sweater and too many curves. 

“And it's Natasha, now.” She added, drawing back from him and looking up to meet his eyes. 

“Looks like everyone's leaving the past behind ‘em these days.”

“That's the plan.”


	8. Chapter Eight

Darcy waited, awkward and feeling redundant, downstairs. 

Bucky had disappeared upstairs - presumably to his bedroom, she certainly hoped they’d not gone to hers, and the bathroom seemed an unlikely if adventurous choice - with the mysterious redhead, neither of them giving her so much as a second glance as they made their way up the small wooden staircase. Darcy wasn’t overly given to assumption, but she was currently betting on the other woman having some kind of witchcraft in her, for she was the only person Darcy had seen so far make it the whole way up without making the middle stair creak. 

Once upstairs, though. Well. There were … Noises. 

She’d not felt so uncomfortable since she’d had to - thankfully briefly - share an apartment with Jane and Thor. A week was more than enough to be trapped on the other side of a wall from people who enjoyed an enthusiastic sex life, multiple times a night. It might have taken the sting out of it a little bit if she’d not been desperately single herself at the time, though she doubted there was much could really make her look positively on being kept awake all through the night. 

Darcy dropped herself bodily into the ancient couch, sighing heavily and wondering how long she was going to be kept awake tonight. The masochistic part of her - alarmingly loud in the back of her head nowadays - whispered slyly that it was likely to be a good long time. She didn’t know who the redhead was, aside from ‘Natalia’, but Barnes clearly did. The tension between them had crackled with more electricity than Thor’s hammer at full pelt. 

God, she really hoped they’d made it all the way along the short corridor to his room and not ducked immediately into the first open door. Had she left her door open? Darcy’s brain raced frantically, trying to retrace her steps that morning. She’d been walking on auto-pilot, another long night of interrupted sleep, tossing and turning and waking to memories of fire and metal. If it hadn’t been visions of Loki, enslaving the world and turning it to ash in front of her very eyes, it had been guilty thoughts about her father, sick half a world away and no chance to reach him properly. She’d practically sleep-walked her way through washing and dressing. 

She had no desire to go upstairs and check whether her bedroom was being used as an impromptu sex den. 

Ugh. 

Darcy wrinkled her nose and looked down at herself. 

Sloppy knit jumper, falling over her narrow hips and halfway over her hands, far too large for her strictly speaking but she’d lost weight over the last couple of years, without trying and without any inclination to change up her wardrobe. Without the money to do so, if she was being upfront about it. Jeans that had seen better days, patched and repatched - badly, because Darcy was frugal but without the skill to really make it work. Nails that were, at least, clean, but without a scrap of polish. 

Darcy compared herself, unfairly she knew, with the lithe redhead who’d sat perched on the the kitchen counter like she owned the place, and probably half of Scotland as well judging by the way she’d looked up with a total lack of concern at being discovered. Confidence and the kind of sex appeal that people usually only saw in films dripping from her as she’d strolled her way across the room, ahead of Bucky, even though she apparently didn’t know where she was going. 

The sort of innate self confidence that Darcy wished she had. 

The little brunette let out a frustrated groan and propelled herself into a proper sitting position on the edge of the couch. It wasn’t like she had any claim to… Anyone. Or wanted… Anything. Did she? Her eyes, betraying her mind, slipped to the side and looked at the other end of the couch where, just days before, she’d slid herself into Barnes’ lap and challenged that he kiss her. 

It was a bolshy side of Darcy Lewis that she’d thought might have been squished out of her by now, after battling aliens had left her with disturbed sleep and something of a fear of the dark. She hadn’t expected him to respond. Not Barnes, who prodded her hard when she added what he considered too much spice to dinner, not Barnes who hated the way she made coffee and sniped at her every time she did. 

And yet.

And yet there was also Barnes who’d followed her upstairs when she’d bolted, and forced her to open up to him. Barnes who’d she’d woken up entangled with in the early hours of the morning, sleepy and warm for once, cuddled against his chest with his arm slung across her waist. Barnes who’d tucked the covers up and around her when he’d slipped out of bed before her. 

Darcy frowned, and as she did so, there was a long, low twang of bedsprings from upstairs. She felt a little sick, closing her eyes and blinking the feeling away as fast as it had come over her. Another creak from the room above her head had Darcy flinging herself from the couch, and just avoiding the temptation to stuff her fingers in her ears. 

Pushing her hands through her hair, she span on her heel and surveyed the room. Her laptop was propped up on one of the kitchen stools, and it made her pause. Not where she’d left it. Darcy narrowed her eyes, and her head tilted to one side as she considered the possible options around it having moved. 

One. Bucky had moved it. Likelihood - possible. Maybe even probable. He had little to no interest in using it, and had been known to complain about how much time she spent tapping away at the keys, and hated seeing it left on the couch. 

Two. Darcy had moved it, and forgotten. Likelihood - near impossible. Darcy was many things and some of them, she was big enough to admit, meant she could be considered a bit flakey, but she remembered where she put stuff. Especially stuff as important as an encrypted laptop entrusted to her by a man on the run, and kept in a safe-house that was currently home to one of the world’s most wanted. 

Three. Their visitor was up to no good. Likelihood - almost inevitable. 

Picking it up and running a finger down the side, finding the telltale bump between the case and the fascia of the keys that let her know that someone was trying to pull files off the computer without being so blindingly obvious as to stick a USB drive in the side of it, Darcy smiled to herself. 

“You want files, Big Red? I’ll give you files.”

She flipped open the lid and started to type. 

\-------

“So you changed your name, and became someone else.” Bucky said, looking at her steadily from where she’d sat back down on his bed. “Must be nice. Pack up the bits you don’t like anymore, put them away, forget about them.”

“No one forgets themselves.” Natasha shook her head at him. 

He laughed. 

“You’re talking to the wrong person.” He said, from the other side of the room. “I forgot all about the man I was supposed to be, the man I grew up as. Left him somewhere next to an ice-laden river in Austria, swearing out his last breaths in the snow with no bastard around to hear the last will and testament of James Barnes, such as it was.”

The redhead regarded him coolly, wholly unmoved by his speech. “You know, the bitter old man thing doesn’t suit you.”

“Really?” He said, with a single raised eyebrow. “I think it’s working quite well.” 

“Is that what does it for Darcy?” Natasha said with a grin. 

“Will you knock it off? Between you and Wilson-”

“Sam was here?”

There was a certain cadence to her voice, in the way that she said his name, that gave Bucky a little pause. Interesting. Natalia might think him slipping on his spying background, but based on the evidence in front of him, or rather in his ears, the Black Widow could stand to sharpen up her poker face. 

He considered calling her out on it, but opted to feign ignorance. 

“Yeah. Couple of days back.” Bucky shrugged instead. “He brought groceries. What’d you bring?”

“Please.” She sniffed. “I am not your errand boy.” 

“That, you ain’t. So, we done here?” 

A pair of cat-like green eyes raked over him, narrowing as she gazed at him and found little in response. “I suppose we are.”

“Well, you know where the door is.” With that, he pulled the door open behind him, not looking, and gestured towards it. The girl unfolded herself with a grace that he had long since committed to memory, even if it hadn’t been a conscious decision to do so, and as she passed by him he caught a definitive waft of her perfume that sent buried memories flashing across his brain, unbidden. 

“So long, Barnes.” She said, over her shoulder, not looking back. 

He didn’t answer. 

\------

Darcy, hearing the door open somewhere upstairs above her head, zapped through the last few commands and carefully arranged the laptop back where it had been placed. She then threw herself into the kitchen area, hauling open the refrigerator door and sticking her head in it as though she were looking for something. 

“Miss Lewis.”

Darcy straightened up, looking over the top of the fridge door but not closing it, taking in the redhead now stood two feet away from her. The little brunette nodded to the other girl, and hoped the caution she felt wasn’t too obvious on her face. 

“Person who broke into our house and drank our coffee.”

The redhead suppressed a small grin before she answered. 

“It wasn’t your coffee. I bring my own.”

“Person who is alarmingly well prepared for breaking and entering.” Darcy amended, narrowing her eyes and shifting herself more behind the open appliance door, just in case. The redhead shook her head, smiling, and disappeared out of the front door without another word. 

\------

“Lewis?” 

Darcy started and turned back from the door through which the redhead - Natalia, she supposed - had disappeared, and found Barnes standing just inches from her. She jumped slightly, stepping backwards from him, heart jump starting in the middle of her chest at finding him so close so unexpectedly. 

“Jeez, are you part cat or something?” She said, curling her body in on herself defensively, leaning away from him without even really thinking about it. He snorted in response, and Darcy wasn’t quite sure what it was that was so funny, but let it slide. She cleared her throat, awkwardly. 

“So, you, um, all done upstairs?” She asked, not meeting his eyes. “With your, uh… Lady caller.” She caught Barnes raising an eyebrow in her direction, glancing at him from the corner of her eye as she deliberately kept hers - mostly - trained on the floor, and edged her way around his bulk. 

“How’s your father?” The question came out of the blue and she froze in place, arm brushing up against him as she stood stock still and rooted to the spot. She hadn’t expected him to remember, hadn’t expected him to ask. Darcy turned to him with her mouth slightly open. 

“He’s, um.” She started faintly, and found herself twisting her fingers together inside her sweater sleeves as they fell over her clasped hands. “He’s still in hospital.” Barnes said nothing, waiting apparently on her to say more. Darcy wrinkled her nose and forced her head up to look at him, only to find that he was staring right on back at her. 

“They think another couple of days, maybe? Then home.” She managed, haltingly, as she came under his careful scrutiny. Barnes nodded once, then, looking as though he’d rather lose it the same as the other one than do what he was doing, awkwardly raised his arm and lay it around her shoulders. 

They stood together, Darcy staring into the solid wall of muscle that constituted Barnes’ chest, and he determinedly looking over her shoulder as the weight of his arm dragged her closer to him. Darcy gulped slightly, swallowed what felt like a hard lump that clogged in her throat, and then his lips were pressed lightly against her temple. 

She blinked, then collected herself and pushed at him hard, palms flat against his chest and shoving him away from her as best she was able to manage. He stumbled back slightly, and she toppled as well, the weight of his arm still slung across her meaning that her balance was off centre. Darcy shrugged his arm off and took a half step back. 

“You can’t do that.” She said, with more conviction than she felt. He gaped at her. “The, uh, the mouth thing. Not a thing you can do.” 

“Mouth thing.” He repeated, staring at her. 

“Kissing-” She snapped, then cut herself off, dialling down the tone of her voice and trying again. “Kissing. Or whatever you want to call it. Not after you’ve been…” Darcy trailed off and fumbled at the right words, feeling them slip from her grasp and skitter away from her. Unable to get her jaw working properly, she pointed towards the staircase and hoped he’d get her point. 

“No.” 

“No?”

“That-” He waved a hand in the direction of the staircase, still looking down at her. “Whatever that means, was not - isn’t - just, no.” Barnes finally managed, shaking his head firmly. He sighed. “This is a thing people do, isn’t it? To make another person… Feel better?”

“Does it look like you’re making me feel better?”

“This is the longest I’ve had to spend with another person. I don’t know how to-” Barnes cut himself off, looking frustrated as he growled his words out at her, with his fist clenching slightly at his side. He huffed in irritation. “And you’re not exactly normal.”

“Says the man who’s officially a hundred years old and spent most of that in the deep freeze?” Darcy retorted, twisting back so that she was squaring up to him straight on with shoulders set and glaring up at the dark haired man in front of her. 

“Ninety nine.” He snapped back at the girl, and immediately paused to wondered why it mattered to make the correction. 

“Well that makes all the difference, I must say.” She said hotly, feeling anger and something else she couldn’t quite put a finger on bubble up inside her. “Then of course you’re perfectly qualified to wander around judging other people’s normality.”

“I damn well will if they happen to be a punk kid without the sense to know when to be quiet.” Bucky loomed over her and Darcy tilted her head back defiantly to keep him in her eyeline. Her chest was heaving and she could feel her skin practically vibrating with frustration. She took a step closer, a hair’s breadth away from being pressed up against him. 

“Yeah? And you’re an asshole who wouldn’t know a good thing if it hit him in the face.” 

Bucky thought for a hot second she was going to follow it right up with a slap across his face, and almost invited it from the girl, but she just spat out the words, punctuating the last five with her index finger poking him in the chest. She continued to stare him down, dark hair wild and framing the sharp angles of her face. Her mouth snapped together, pink lips pursed. 

Bucky stared down at the finger still jabbed into his chest. He put his hand on her wrist, closing tight around it and jerked her to him. Her blue eyes looked wild as he kept a firm grip on her wrist, but though her eyes flickered from his hand to his face, she didn’t pull back. 

He kissed her, knowing full well it was a stupid move, but finding the blood pumping through his veins and shutting down any rational thought that might have stopped him. Darcy tensed, braced her hands against his chest, then sank into it, giving as good as she got. Bucky groaned into her and let his arm drop lower until it was splayed over her lower back. 

Darcy’s hands fisted in his shirt as his tongue slipped into her mouth, and Bucky’s hand found it’s way lower until he could grab at her ass and haul her upwards. She moved with him, neither of them breaking the kiss, and locked her legs around his waist. He took a step back, unbalanced slightly with the additional weight and trying to hold her with one arm. 

Finding the wall solid behind him and providing the support he needed, Bucky leaned back into it and tilted his hips so that Darcy could lay forward against him, over his chest. Her hands were tangled in his hair and he broke the kiss finally, panting slightly and looking up at her. 

“Sorry.” He said, feeling a little lost in his own mind. 

“Don’t start that rubbish again.” She said irritably. “Kiss me or don’t, but don’t go apologising for it afterwards.”

“Noted.” Bucky said, shifting her slightly against him. He found himself wanting to brush the hair back from her face that had fallen across it, but with his only arm currently engaged in holding her up, there was no way he was going to be able to do so. “And… And if I wanted to do it again?”

“You want to kiss me again?” Darcy asked, looking a lot like she didn’t really believe him. Bucky nodded and, despite the look of doubt on her face, the girl didn’t resist when he captured her mouth again with his.


End file.
